Royce Da 5'9″ on Shady Records and His PRhyme LP with DJ Premier

Royce Da 5’9″ has aligned himself with some of the biggest names in hip-hop throughout his career, whether it be with his partners in crime in Slaughterhouse or as one half of the duo Bad Meets Evil alongside Eminem. But now he’s about to take on a new accomplice in the hip-hop world with his new group PRhyme with DJ Premier. But don’t think that this is the second coming of Gang Starr—far from it. Instead, Royce and Premier are setting out to craft a new musical landscape, with their first full-length LP, announced earlier today, crafted entirely out of Adrian Younge samples.

But that’s not the only thing Royce has going on; Shady Records is celebrating its 15th anniversary this November with a label compilation of new material and greatest hits, Slaughterhouse is involved in the Battle To Total Slaughter rap battle television show, he’s got new records coming up with his ‘House mates and a solo project somewhere in the distance as well. For Nickel Nine, the hustle don’t stop. —Dan Rys



XXL: You’ve been busy lately.
Royce Da 5’9″: I’ve been tryna be, man. Me being busy works out way better for me than the latter, man.

You guys just did Total Slaughter. How did that whole thing come together?
 Well Total Slaughter, man. It morphed into what it is now so fast. It started out as just an idea; we were all overseas, I think we were opening up for some Em shows, some festival shows or something. But we were just all on the bus just brainstorming, and once we got back to New York it kinda just took shape. And it was something originally that was supposed to live online. ‘Cause we all fans of the sport.

So aside from wanting to be a part of it somehow and wanting to do our part to help out, we kind of want to see these guys on that pedestal. We want to figure out how to provide the platform for these guys to stand on so the rest of the world can see what we see, some fan-first type of shit. It was supposed to live online, and then as we started moving with it it just gradually started getting bigger, and once the network TV got involved, that was pretty much it. It was a wrap from there. So it formed into what it is now, and now you got all these other leagues and big networks trying to chime in on it, and that’s great. It’s exactly what we wanted.

I feel like battle rap comes in waves; people will talk about it, then it will disappear, but it always comes back.
 That’s what people do; I call that casual fans. The casual fans will get it when it’s raw, they take it and they wanna see it big. When they don’t see it turn the corner they walk away from it, because they feel like it’s not cool to follow it. But it’ll always be there. It will never go away because it’s always relative; it matters. It’s the foundation.



It’s the 15th anniversary of Shady Records, and you’ve had a long association with the label. What can you tell me about the Shady XV project?
 I don’t know much about it. The way that they roll things out over there they kind of keep everything kinda tight lipped. They’re a lot like Apple over there. I know that there’s a piece of work that they’re putting out, they’re calling it a compilation, and there’s gonna be music that was released before to commemorate that first release, and then there’s gonna be new music. That’s all I know.

Paul Rosenberg told me the other day that there’s gonna be new Bad Meets Evil material as well as new Slaughterhouse material. Have you been working with Em recently?
 Yes, I have been working with Em. There’s gonna be a wide mixture; I think everything is supposed to tie in to exactly what the label embodies, which is Slaughterhouse, Yelawolf, Bad Meets Evil, D12, and I think that’s it.