The Game has gone back and forth on how he feels about Eminem throughout his career, but he has now made it clear that he deeply respects the rap legend’s work regardless of their past spats.
In a VladTV interview clip posted on Saturday (December 9), the Compton native discussed his chart-topping debut album and having the opportunity to work with some of Hip Hop’s finest on the project, including Slim Shady’s contribution to “We Ain’t.”
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“Watching Eminem record and his whole recording process,” he said. “That might’ve been one of the highlights of my career, because I don’t know if you want to call it weird or legendary or some Einstein type of shit, evil genius type of shit, but Em is a very, very complex and different individual in good ways.
“When he writes raps, he turns the paper around — he just writes in circles and turns it. When he reads it, he turns it back the opposite way and starts to read it … when we were using paper, I don’t know his recording process these days […] That process was dope. I’m forever grateful for being able to experience, y’know, prime Eminem in his essence in Detroit.”
The above comments stand out particularly because The Game has previously expressed his admiration for Em but also taken shots at him.
During a 2010 interview, he said: “In Hip Hop, Eminem is the only rapper that nobody ever wants a problem with, including myself, man. Eminem is like the most lyrically insane. Even when I was going at 50 [Cent] and me and [Dr.] Dre wasn’t seeing eye-to-eye, I stayed away from the white dude. Y’know, ’cause he a problem.”
When asked what he would do if Slim Shady dissed him, the former G-Unit member succinctly responded: “Run.”
Last year, however, he made a contrastingly bold claim about Eminem during an appearance on Drink Champs and even challenged him to a Verzuz.
“Eminem is Eminem, I like Eminem,” he said. “He’s one of the fuckin’ good MCs, great MCs. I used to think Eminem was better than me. He not, he’s not. Challenge it. Yes, I do [want to do Verzuz against Eminem]. What you mean, yeah I do? The fuck you mean? I’m not saying I want smoke with Eminem; I’m saying I want smoke with Eminem, him, and him, whoever.”
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Just a few months later, the LA rapper released a scathing Eminem diss track called “The Black Slim Shady.” Taken from his latest album, Drillmatic: Heart vs. the Mind, the 10-plus minute tongue lashing features The Game spitting: “So oh, he goes platinum and oh, I’m on the ‘Math with him/ He got all the Blackest friends, he wants to be African, me/ Left for dead on the Doctor’s Advocate/ Dre never executive produced it, I just imagined it.”
This past summer, Eminem finally responded to his former collaborator’s past comments about his music not being played in clubs. In a guest verse on Ez Mil’s “Realest,” the 51-year-old raps: “All the envious rappers I’d torch if I’m on a joint with ’em/ And that is the only retort is I’m not played in the clubs muthafucka put a cork in it/ Only reason they still play your shit in the clubs is ’cause you still perform in ’em.”
