In just two days, football and sports fans around the world will see one of the most game-changing halftime performances in Super Bowl history. Ahead of the big event, Eminem, one of the five headliners slated to take the stage, sat down with Sway Calloway and shared a few words about the talent of fellow headliner, Kendrick Lamar.
“Kendrick is at the very top, top tier of lyricist,” Em said of the Compton rapper. K. Dot’s brilliant wordplay, he added, not only makes him one of the most elite rappers in this generation, but it also cements him among the best lyricists “of all time.”
Eminem is certainly a fan of Kendrick, but he was not always convinced that Lamar was the mastermind behind his own lyrics. In an attempt to figure out the truth, he reportedly asked K.Dot to hop on his 2013 song “Love Game” and made sure he got in the studio without his entourage. When Lamar wrote “a sick verse,” he confirmed he had no ghostwriter and declared that “he’s the best. The praises haven’t stopped since.
Nearly two years ago, Slim Shady explained why he believes K.Dot is a “top-tier lyricist.”
“If I’m getting on a track with Kendrick, I can never tell what the fuck he’s gonna do because he’s such a chameleon of styles, and he can fucking do pretty much anything, right?” Eminem told Kxng Crooked. “And he’s so proficient at it. He’s so good at it that you don’t know what you’re going to get. That to me is like a top-tier lyricist because it’s like you can get your ass kicked any day. Certain rappers get on a certain song and it just depends.”
Em and Kendrick are set to take the field alongside Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre on Sunday (Feb. 13) at this year’s Super Bowl halftime show. When discussing the upcoming performance, Slim Shady said, “It’s fucking nerve-racking. This is like to me, there’s nothing more final than live TV. You know what I’m saying? So, if you fuck up, your fuck up is there forever.”
“When Dre first asked, when the whole thing started going down and we were like, ‘Okay, this might be actually serious.’ I was trying to envision what Dre might do,” he continued. “I was thinking like, ‘Yeah, it’s dope that all of us are gonna rap together.’ […] I didn’t expect it to be, like the production to be like this.”
See clips from Eminem’s interview below.