After explaining the origin of House of Pain’s biggest hit in last week’s teaser, Everlast’s full, super-sized episode of People’s Party With Talib Kweli has arrived.
In this week’s episode, the Golden Era pioneer breaks down a number of topics, from representing his Irish heritage and swapping straight-up rap for rock on Whitey Ford Sings The Blues to how he formed his hip-hop supergroup La Coka Nostra with B-Real, Ill Bill, and Sick Jacken. He also details his infamous beef with Eminem, how that beef wound up pulling in Dilated Peoples, and how it was eventually squashed with the help of B-Real.
“We were the only guys that battled on Napster, honestly,” Everlast admits, referring to the equally infamous file-sharing service that once shook the music industry to its core. “The only time it became a stress factor,” he says, “At our first initial meeting, I tried to shake [Eminem’s] hand and just kinda felt like I got igged. So I put a little kind of, what they’d call a subtweet… It got noticed, and the funny part was that I got called by B-Real,” who was also managed by Paul Rosenberg at the time, as Eminem was. Everlast breaks down how he and Eminem traded shots but ultimately let it go, because there were so many mutual connections and that alternative stations picked up on the beef and started leaving him off their festivals because they didn’t want to offend Eminem. Eventually, B-Real jumped in and helped mediate the feud. Everlast maintains that the only thing he would have done differently is change a line about Eminem’s kid.
Watch Everlast’s full interview above.
People’s Party is a weekly interview show hosted by Talib Kweli with big-name guests exploring hip-hop, culture, and politics. Subscribe via Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.