Royce da 5'9"

Released: February 21, 2020

Featuring: Eminem

Songwriter: Eminem

Producer: Royce da 5'9"

[Interlude: Eminem]
But you got people of all races
Like, coming together and, and
Helping shape this from the ground up
So now you got little white kids growin' up with black idols
And you got black kids growin' up with white idols
And you got, it-it's just this whole mixing pot
Nothing has brought more races and more people
From all different walks of life together than hip-hop
No music has done that
I don't think anything has done that as much as hip-hop has
So, in the same token
I can understand the frustration being that, you know
Damn near every form of, of music, period, was created by black people
So, you got Chuck Berry, you got Rosetta Tharpe
And rock n' roll is starting to get some attention, but then along comes Elvis
And people are acting like, "Oh my God, I've never seen this before"
You've seen it before, but you might not have seen a white person do it to this level
So now, he sells the most records and people are callin' him the king of rock n' roll, right?
But on the flip side of the coin
If I'm a black kid, growin' up in, let's say the 60s, 70s, 80s, whatever, right
And I'm lookin' on TV and nobody looks like me
And it's very stereotypical
And I'm lookin' at fuckin', I'm lookin' at toys
And they're, and everything is white
The fuckin' action figures are all white
The, the fuckin' superheroes are all white
Like, maybe there's one or two, uh, black superheroes mixed in there with mostly white
I don't know how I'd grow up and not have a chip on my shoulder
On the other flip side of that coin
We don't get to choose our parents, we don't get to choose what color we're born
It's more about, at that point, it becomes
You're born here, you are, you're what color you are, you're what nationality you are
And then it's what you do with it, right
To make a difference
To make a difference
To make a—
To make a difference

Royce da 5'9", real name Ryan Daniel Montgomery, is undoubtedly one of the underground rap kings of Detroit. The Michigan MC is a long-time collaborator of Eminem’s, meeting him in December 1997, and is noted as one of the greatest lyricists in hip-hop’s history (in 2012, The Source ranked him as the 48th greatest lyricist of all time in their top 50, this questionable ranking unsurprisingly being scrutinized by many as a gross misjudgment).

Although critics have previously cast shade on his ability to create a well-rounded body of work, many, critics included, considered his sophomore effort, Death is Certain (2004), to be a strong album. To learn more in-depth about his solo discography, read this page (the page listed is old, so it is not updated).

Royce is the Bad half of Bad Meets Evil (with Eminem), ¼ of Slaughterhouse (alongside Crooked I KXNG CROOKED, Joe Budden and Joell Ortiz), and ½ of PRhyme (with DJ Premier). Royce currently operates a independent record label, Bad Half Entertainment.

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