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March 29, 2024

News: Eminem and Paul Roenberg Cover Billboard Power 100 Issue

After releasing a new album Revival last year here, Eminem is the latest artist along with Def Jam CEO Paul Rosenberg to grace the cover of Billboard’s Power 100 Issue. The two talk with Dan Rys on the early Hip Hop days, music and more. Take a look at some of what they had to say below and read the full story over at Billboard.

Billboard: How would you describe your dynamic?

Paul Rosenberg: I officially started working with him in ’97, so this is the 20th year. It’s 20 years of being in business with each other and being friends.

Eminem: Twenty years of hell. [Laughs.]

Rosenberg: There are moments when it’s extremely serious and intense, and there are other moments where it’s very lighthearted and, dare I say, juvenile.

Eminem: You dare say.

Billboard: What led to you guys working together?

Rosenberg: I thought he was really talented, but at that point he hadn’t figured out who he was yet as an artist. He was trying to sound like other people, like Nas —
Eminem: I wasn’t trying to sound like other people — I just kinda did. [Laughs.] I was a cross between AZ, Nas, Souls of Mischief, Redman, all the great hip-hop that was out at the time.

Rosenberg: I moved to New York and started studying for the bar [exam] and stayed in touch with everybody from the music scene in Detroit. At one point, [a friend] hit me up and said, “You got to check out the new stuff Eminem’s doing.” So I got his number, called him up and [asked him to] send it to me. I got the cassette, listened to it and I was really blown away. I realized that he had found his voice; he stopped being so self-aware and self-conscious about what he was saying and how he was saying it and just sounded like somebody, for lack of a better description, who didn’t give a fuck. And it really came across in the music. So I called him up and [asked] if I could represent him. That’s how it started; I was his music attorney.

Eminem: And then I would make trips back and forth with friends to New York.

Rosenberg: Yeah, and that’s how the friendship started to grow. Neither of us had any money, so he would literally sleep on my couch and we just figured it out. And when you say we pounded the pavement, we literally pounded the pavement, because again, you couldn’t send stuff electronically. I had to literally go to clubs with an armful of records and hand them to DJs and get in front of Stretch Armstrong and Tony Touch and Clark Kent like, “Hey, I’m Paul, I want you to check out Eminem.” And to this day, I’ve got relationships with these guys, and I met them from handing them records. I don’t want to sound like the old guy reminiscing and being nostalgic, but that face time, that human connection, it’s difficult to replace. And I think there’s value in that, and we miss that today.