As fans digest Big Sean’s I Decided. album, the Detroit rapper continues to make his media rounds. In a recent stop by Big Boy’s Neighborhood on Real 92.3, he explained how he got Eminem on “No Favors.”
“I hit him up at a point where the album was almost done,” he says. “I called Paul Rosenberg, I called Royce Da 5’9. I called Em, I called all them hitting them up at the same time ’cause I wanted it. I sent them the song. Everybody hit me back like, ‘This song is fire.’ I talked to Eminem on the phone. I’m talking to Em on the phone. He’s like ‘This song’s crazy.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, let’s get it.’ He’s like, ‘I don’t know if I got time to get it done.’ He’s working on his stuff. I was like aw man. He was like, ‘I really wanna do it. So I’ma try to get it done, I’ma try to get it done, but I don’t know.’ I did a song for him, so he can’t just say no. He had to be like oh yeah. Then, like two and a half weeks later or something like that, it just popped up in an email it was crazy.”
Sean Don shares that he had originally recorded two short verses and sent Slim Shady the track with room for 16 bars. In that email, Em sent him two and a half minutes of bars that Sean reiterates made him feel a “brand new energy” from the legend.
“I just felt like he had all these thoughts,” he says. “It felt like he had so much shit bottled up that he just let out so I was just happy he let it out on a track.”
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While the verse brought about its fair share of controversy (a Canadian women’s group is calling for a boycott of Big Sean and Eminem), Marshall Mathers told the rising star that it was “an honor” to be on the track.
“He was like, ‘I love your verse,'” Sean says. “He was telling me how much he loved my verse. I’m like, ‘Man, shut your ass up.’ He was like, ‘No, forreal. That was the reason I snapped on it, too. I was feeling it.'”
He also explains how Kanye West has served as a mentor to him and shared that the GOOD Music boss helped him formulate his recording process.
“The first time I got into the studio with him, he was working on Graduation,” Sean says. “I remember I broke out a notepad and a pen, he was like, ‘Man, get that the hell out of here, man.’ I ain’t know what he was talking about. It was funny because after that, I saw him with a notepad and pen way later. The fact that I got shocked like that, I immediately dropped it, I never picked a notepad and pen up ever again after that and just like forced myself. It made my memory that much better, too.”
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He shares that while he can’t remember specific wisdom that ‘Ye has told him, he’s learned his biggest lesson from watching his moves.
“The best advice I got from him, just being around him is to you gotta always remember to live with yourself after everything you do,” Sean reveals. “No matter what moves you make or don’t make, you always gotta live with that decision. He’s a bold person, too. He always does what he does and he lives with his decision. He stands by it.”
Getting all of this feedback from such legends, including Jay Z giving him a Roc-A-Fella chain, has inspired Big Sean to start forming his own way of giving back. He shares the big news about his own business venture.
“I was just like, man, I really have to return this favor,” he says. “So not just for any other reason for that, I am starting my own record label now. I am looking for artists to put on and help out. I feel like I’m just now getting to that point where I can help somebody out and give them a chance. Just because I believe in karma. I believe in the universe and I feel like that’s one of my purposes too is to help give somebody else that feeling and pass that on.”
