Eminem's Brother Says Rapper Was 'The Best Role Model'

Eminem’s younger brother has showered the Detroit rap icon in praise, referring to Slim Shady as “the best role model” he had when he decided to have kids.

Nathan Kane Mathers spoke about his relationship with Eminem on the podcast Just a Little Shady, which is hosted by the rapper’s daughter Hailie Jade Mathers.

“He was the best role model I could have had to be the dad that I am today,” said Nathan, who has three children and referred to himself as a “party animal” growing up.

Nathan, who is roughly 14 years Eminem’s junior and once lived with the rapper when he was teen, also spoke about his own foray into music and learning to write lyrics from his older brother.

“I started getting into music at a very young age. As I got older and thought about wanting to do it as a career, I had learned from your dad, my brother, on how to do music and how to write formulas, compounds syllables, what not, and tested it out in the beginning, getting comfortable with my voice,” he said.

He continued: “I knew there was going to be a comparison. ‘Hey, how does he sound compared to his brother? Does he have the same formula? Does he have the syllables? Is he a battle rapper? Is he a freestyle? What can he do?…Is he on that level? Can he be above that?’

“And it was never about that. It was more about just having fun and being able to be around music and do something that other people would enjoy.”

Nathan went on to say that as his own rap career started to pick up steam, he recorded his hit “Slide On Over” at the same Florida studio where Rick Ross and Flo Rida recorded.

Nathan Kane Mathers’ is the second guest to appear on Just a Little Shady, which Eminem’s daughter launched last July. In its debut episode, Hailie Jade opened up about the “surreal” experience of growing up as Slim Shady’s spawn.

“I remember going on [Eminem’s tour bus] and all our memories of being young were so cool and unique to look back at now,” Hailie’s co-host and childhood best friend Brittany Ednie said. “But at the time, it felt so normal and not anything strange or different. I mean, ’cause we didn’t know any better.”

“Obviously we were in a normal public school, we never thought anything was different,” Hailie interjected. “I don’t know, we had so many normal experiences that when something like that happened, I thought like, ‘Oh, everybody else does this too.’ Not realizing that like, no, that’s freaking weird.

“It’s so fun to look back, when we have these conversations here, wherever, like thinking back as an adult, like, ‘Wow, that’s actually so surreal.’ Those memories of me thinking those were normal things, now I look back and I’m like, ‘Holy crap, that was cool.’”

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Eminem has often been open about his devotion to his daughters, at one point defending Hailie against Machine Gun Kelly after the rapper tweeted out that she looked “hot as fuck” in 2012. Em responded to the disrespect on his 2018 Kamikaze track “Not Alike.”

“If you wanna come at me with a sub, Machine Gun/ And I’m talkin’ to you, but you already know who the fuck you are, Kelly/ I don’t use sublims and sure as fuck don’t sneak-diss/ But keep commenting on my daughter Hailie,” he rapped.