This Is How Eminem Found Out Kendrick Lamar Didn’t Use a Ghostwriter
After a fair amount of time out of the spotlight, Ed Sheeran is jumping right back in. On Friday morning, he released two new songs, and now he’s giving interviews to lots of different outlets. In one of those chats, the singer/songwriter shared an interesting story he heard from Rick Rubin, who produced both Sheeran and Em, about the first time Kendrick Lamar and Eminem worked together, on a session that would eventually become the song “Love Game” on The Marshall Mathers LP 2.
“I heard a very cool story about Eminem and Kendrick Lamar,” Sheeran told The Zach Sang Show. “Eminem…heard that Kendrick Lamar was the best rapper and he invited him to the studio to get him on a song. He arrived and Kendrick came with all his mates and Eminem said, ‘I just want you in the studio, just you on your own. And then my engineer is gonna come in and then record you doing it. But your mates aren’t allowed in.'”
The reason for the privacy? “Eminem said that he did it to test Kendrick because he thought he had a ghostwriter,” Sheeran explained. “He then realized that he didn’t” after Kendrick proceeded to write “a sick verse.”
You can hear Sheeran tell the story himself at around the 7:50 mark of the video below.
[youtube ytid=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXFVrz_qoWw?wmode=transparent&jqoemcache=dWO4T%5D
Rick Rubin presumably heard this story directly from Eminem, rather than having been there himself. Lamar and Rubin met for the first time just a few months ago for a GQ cover story.