Lil Wayne Acknowledges That His First Collaboration With Eminem on Drake’s “Forever” Was Terrifying

Three songs have featured the duo together: “Drop the World” (2010), “No Love” (2010), and 2009’s “Forever” with Drake and Kanye West.

Before phoning up a superstar like Eminem, even Lil Wayne becomes a little apprehensive.

Speaking to The New York Times last week for a piece on hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, Weezy admitted that he was “scаred” to approach Eminem about working with him on a project for the first time.

When Wayne, 40, called Eminem for a song, “I was scаred, actually,” he said to the site. “That is a monster.”

He must possess the same verbal quirk as myself. We just can’t seem to get them out of our minds. All aspects and meanings of them. The rapper “A Milli” went on, “We hear things that rhyme.” “I am already aware of both his blessing and his curse. And I adore hearing how he constructs it.”

Wayne had previously worked with other rappers including Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross, Drake, and Nicki Minaj at the time, but since he was an Eminem fan, it seemed odd to approach him.

The rappers’ initial joint project was the 2009 song “Forever,” by Drake, which also included Kanye West. “Drop the World” from Wayne’s 2010 Rebirth album was their first song together, and they later reconnected for “No Love” from Eminem’s Recovery album in the same year.

His audacious phone call to Eminem paid off, as all of their joint projects have been successful. All four of the tracks eventually went multi-platinum. “Forever” peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Hоt 100, “Drop the World” at No. 18, and “No Love” at No. 24.

Wayne mentioned his admiration for JAY-Z at several points in his NYT interview. “Jay-Z, Shawn Carter, was the word god to me. The rapper claimed, “He could’ve rewritten English books.”

“I first became acquainted with Jay through Biggie’s music. “Lucky Me,” from In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, taught me everything there was to know. I incorporate it into songs, and I even repeat lyrics from that song at the beginning of every performance.”

The song “Lucky Me” is then quoted by him, with the line “And I swear to everything that when I leave this earth/it’s gon’ be on both feet, never knees in the dirt/you could try me, [expletive]/but when I squeeze it hurts/fine……..”

Wayne went on, “And the crаzy thing is that the crowd sings the rest of the song with me as if I wrote it after we stop the music at that point. But Jay, that’s all.”