Eminem said tension between the pair began with a “miscommunication” years ago
Eminem and Snoop Dogg have Dr. Dre’s 2021 health scare to thank for helping them repair their relationship.
The rappers, who first collaborated more than two decades ago, had long-simmering beef that reached a head in 2020, when public comments from Snoop, 50, insulting Eminem, 49, moved the star to diss Snoop in his lyrics.
But when Dr. Dre, 57, suffered a brain aneurysm in January 2021 and spent two weeks in intensive care, the hip-hop stars were inspired to let the past go.
“Me and Snoop had our little issue and then when Dre, when that thing happened with Dre, the brain aneurysm thing…” Eminem told his longtime manager Paul Rosenberg on SiriusXM’s Paul Pod: Curtain Call 2. “We were like, bro this is stupid. This is stupid as hell to be feuding right now. So I don’t remember if I called him, or he called me, I can’t remember, but we talked it out.”
Eminem said that he believes any tension between the two can be traced back to a “miscommunication” over a possible collaboration.
The “Love the Way You Lie” rapper featured Snoop, Dre, Xzibit and Nate Dogg on his song “Bitch Please II” off his 2000 album The Marshall Mathers LP — and said he thinks something got lost in translation after Snoop requested Eminem then feature on one of his tracks.
“I think he had wanted to do something with me and maybe gave you the idea or something,” Eminem recalled to Rosenberg. “And you said something to the effect of, ‘Well let’s hear what the song is first. Let’s see what the type of song is.’ And I think he said the way that he took it was kind of like that I don’t f— with him. That I didn’t f— with him.”
Rosenberg recalled the conversation similarly and said that while he didn’t remember the exact circumstances, remembered Snoop wanting Eminem to contribute in some way to his album.
“I don’t even think I said it to him, because I don’t remember talking to him, but I may have talked to somebody on his team, and whatever I said was relayed back to him in a way that he didn’t like and he thought that meant that you didn’t f— with him,” Rosenberg explained. “Which obviously wasn’t the case.”
Eminem then said that he eventually explained to Snoop Dogg that he was deeply inspired by the rapper’s 1993 debut album.
“Yeah, which I explained to him, like, ‘Bro, Doggystyle changed my life,’” he said.
Eminem (real name Marshall Mathers) and Snoop (Calvin Broadus Jr.) have since collaborated several times, and even shared the stage at Super Bowl LVI earlier this year alongside Mary J. Blige, Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar.
The pair also teamed up for the song “From the D 2 the LBC,” which they performed last month at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Though their relationship is friendly now, things soured in 2020 after Snoop said in an interview that he did not think Eminem was one of the top 10 greatest rappers of all time.
“[Dr. Dre] probably put Eminem in the position that he would be considered one of the top 10 rappers ever. I don’t think so, but the game thinks that he’s a top 10 lyricist and everything that comes with it. That’s just because he’s with Dr. Dre,” he said. “When you are talking about this hip-hop s— that I can’t live without, I can live without that.”
In response, Eminem referenced the “Gin and Juice” rapper in his 2020 song “Zeus,” singing lines like: “And, as far as squashin’ beef, I’m used to people knockin’ me. But, just not in my camp. I’m diplomatic ’cause I’m tryna be. Last thing I need is Snoop doggin’ me… Man, dog, you was like a (yeah) damn God to me. Man, not really. I had ‘dog’ backwards.”
In 2021, Eminem told Shade 45 that Snoop’s comments caught him “off-guard.”
“Everything he said was fine, up to a point,” Eminem said. “Him saying Dre made the best version of me, absolutely, why would I have a problem with that?…. It was the last statement where he said, ‘Far as music I can live without, I can live without that s—.’ Now you’re being disrespectful.”
In an interview with The Breakfast Club in October 2021, Snoop sung Eminem’s praises, and said that he’d apologized to him for the comments.
“Man, I love Eminem!” he told the radio show. “The thing is that we love hip-hop so much, we competitive, we battle rappers, so that was supposed to trigger that in him. But we brothers and we family so we learned to appreciate each other for what we do and how we get down, and we had a long conversation about the respect that we have for each other and the way we need to talk in public about each other.”
He continued: “I apologized to him, and I let him know and I’m just bettering myself. I make mistakes. I ain’t perfect, I’m Snoop Dogg!”