Getty Jay-Z & Beyonce
Man, I remember the first time I caught on to Royce da’ 5’9″
It was my junior year of high school and I wasn’t allowed to watch music videos on MTV or BET.
So, what’s a guy to do? I did it anyway!
My mom would tell me she was going to check the bottom of the cable box and see if it was hot when she came home from work. So, naturally, I found the cheat code. I ran the cold water in the kitched sink until it got extra cold, then I got a sponge and cooled the cable box.
By the time my mom came home, the cable box was cooled and was left the way it was when everyone left for school and work that morning.
Why are these details important, you ask?
This set the stage for the formative years of my hearing Royce da 5’9’s music.
Well, I clearly remember coming home from school and checking out the music video for Rock With Me.
That song, Royce’s, also featured Eminem. I’d been sold on Eminem since he appeared on the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards and marched into the entrance of Radio City Music Hall with a ton of Eminem look-a-likes.
In turn, Eminem shook Carson Daly’s hand and left Fred Durst hanging while rapping to the hit, “The Real Slim Shady.”
Now that I’ve bored you, I say all of that to say that I thought Royce was talented in Rock With Me and the collaboration of he and Eminem meant the world to me back then.As talented a lyricist that Royce is, one would wonder who else he repects lyrically.
In a recent conversation on Scoop B Radio, Royce da’ 5’9 broke it down for me.
“Biggie, Jay-Z, and Nas were in terms of albums were the first albums that I was able to appreciate from a technical, lyrical, standpoint,” Royce da’ 5’9″ told me on Scoop B Radio.
“I’ve always been influenced by Redman, Ras Kass, the Helter Skelter album was a big album in my household. D.O.C. is a criminally slept on emcee out of the west coast. I think had he not had that accident he shoots to top three easily, Big L.”
Big L?? Yup Big L, Harlem’s finest! To this day, Big L and Jay-Z’s exclusive 1995 Stretch and Bobbito freestyle is the most viewed hip hop freestyle on YouTube.
That’s pretty significant for hip hop which will be graced by multitudes of hip hop overtures in this evening’s awards show.
Before the internet, did you ever wonder where some of your favorite lyrical emcees got their huge break?
Stretch and Bobbito introduced the world to a multitude of unsigned artist in the 90s.
I mean, we’re talking: Big L, Nas, Biggie, Wu-Tang, Big Pun, Jay-Z, Eminem and the Fugees!!
Many of your favorite lyricists rocked the mic on NYC’s Stretch and Bobbito Show, which aired Thursday nights from 1-AM – 4 AM out of a basement studio with an old operating board from the 60’s.
He’s very underrated. Royce thinks so too.
“Criminally underrated,” Royce da’ 5’9 told Scoop B Radio.
“I think Big L was better than Jay-Z at that time, just in my opinion. Let me know if y’all disagree because we can argue.”
Nope, we’re saying nothing.