Hot off the success of Pretty Girls Like Trap Music, 2 Chainz opens up about his interactions with Eminem, JAY-Z, and Kanye West.
During a recent interview with DJ Drama, Tity Boi spoke about how his Slim Shady collaboration came to be.
“That’s how I know I can rap,” he said. “[Eminem] didn’t want to talk about nothing but rap and that was a great phone call to get.”
According to Chainz, the collaboration took place at Rick Rubin’s house during BET Awards weekend for a song off Marshall Mathers’ next project. At first, he was told that Shady wanted him to redo a hook and record some ad-libs.
“I said, ‘I don’t redo hooks because I write my own hooks and I want my pub. Secondly, if y’all want my ad-libs, I can just send them, I do the same ones every time.’” Nevertheless, he went. “Let me be humble,” he said. “Let me just go meet Eminem and we’ll go from there.”
When he arrived, Hair Weave Killer says he heard some similarities to his own work.
“He let me hear this song and it was funny,” said Tit. “I heard some things in there where his vernacular was 2 Chainz-y. It was crazy.”
Instead of doing some ad-libs and a hook, Chainz decided to hop on the second verse with a competitive spirit.
“I’m feelin’ like, I’m fin’a knock home out,” he said. “I’m supposed to feel that way. I’m feeling like, I’m fin’a give it to him. I just did a song with Royce 5’9″ and I gave him some of the ATL flavor. I gave him somethin’.” Once the verse was completed, Slim gave him props. “When it was over, Eminem came in and said, ‘How the hell you rhyme tabernacle with Adam’s apple?’” he added.
When they weren’t rapping, the two discussed their current taste in hip-hop.
“Em was telling me he listens to Kendrick and he listens to me,” Chainz said. “He was telling me a lot of my metaphors give him anxiety because he never knows what I’m gonna say…I’m like, ‘It’s really an honor with you saying this because we know where you are as far as the food chain.’”
But other upper echelon rappers have also been praising Chainz, including Kanye West and JAY-Z. In fact, Tity Boi recalled a particular conversation with Yeezy that sparked their friendship and one with Jigga that may have contributed to Hov’s beef with the Louis Vuitton Don.
“What people don’t know is that Jay called me behind ‘Ye and there was a little something going on right there because ‘Ye wasn’t cool with that. Jay had got Jermaine Dupri to call me. They called me on 3-way.” Afterwards, Tity realized that there was a problem. “When Jay called, I happened to tell ‘Ye,” he said. “He was like, ‘You lying! I can’t believe he called you!’ I’m like, ‘Oh shit.’”
But that didn’t affect his relationship with Kanyeezy. In fact, the two recently shared a family dinner, where they spoke about Hov.
“You know Jay came up,” he said. “I knew that when I was going over…But for the most part, we still brothers. He had a couple things that was probably personal that he would want me to keep but we talked about the music climate right now. L.A. Reid was over there and everything so for me, it was about going through all the pink trap house pics [from Pretty Girls Like Trap Music’s artwork and marketing material]. When you get around ‘Ye, it’s about being creative and being some kind of marketing genius.”
Of course, there are plans for more collaborations between the duo, following their past work together on songs like “Birthday Song,” “Mercy,” “Champions,” “Castro,” and “The One.” According to Tity Boi, Kanye also revealed that he is back behind the boards.
“He’s actually producing again, like him, not just giving out directions, which he started doing for awhile,” he explained. “You’ll be hearing some new Tity Boi and Kanye real soon.”
But the Yeezy and Hov beef isn’t the only one that 2 Chainz found himself in the middle of. Recently, he was also at the center of the Remy Ma and Nicki Minaj war, when Nicki dissed Reminisce on Tity Boi’s “Realize.” Hair Weave Killer had to explain his side of things when he ran into Remy and Papoose at a recent event.
“Me and Remy was talking about doing something before all of this happened,” he said. “Papoose dapped me down and she was like, ‘I don’t rock with Tity Boi no more.’ She ain’t say it like that, but she was like, ‘I don’t fuck with him.’ But she was in my face and I was saying, ‘I love you though.’ Papoose was like, ‘How you let that happen?’ Anyway, anyhow, like I told them, I had no control over someone else’s artistic expression. I sent her a song. This is what the song apparently made her say or do. Originally, I only asked Nicki to do a hook so for her to do more than a hook, I wasn’t gonna come back and say, ‘You’re doing too much.’ I was very appreciative of it. Nicki and her have been taking shots on each other and everybody’s tracks…I told them, I pray that they can come to some sort of resolution because they’re two dope black women.”
Pretty Girls Like Trap Music is out now and currently sitting at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.