Eminem

In honor of Eminem’s eighth album The Marshall Mathers LP 2, BET brought back its groundbreaking series “Rap City” for one night only. On the special edition, entitled “Rap City Presents: Em 360,” Big Tigger sat down with the hip-hop icon, who reflected on his nearly 20-year career—from Infinite to MMLP2.

One of the most anticipated collaborations on his new album is “Love Game” featuring Kendrick Lamar. “I love what Kendrick is doing,” said Em of the Compton MC. “He’s continuing the tradition of just making rap exciting. What he did with the ‘Control’ verse is incredible, but we actually did [‘Love Game’] before he did that verse.”

He also addressed rumors that he may be retiring after this album. “I want to rap until it’s not fun anymore,” he said. “When I do set the mic down, I feel like I wanna have something to do with the music, producing, whatever it is. I still wanna be involved.”

Slaughterhouse also joined him to discuss their next album. “I think the guys just dug a lot deeper, it’s a very introspective album, very melancholy,” said Joe Budden of the follow-up to 2012’s Welcome to: Our House. “The lyricism is there, of course, the passion is there, all the things that this group was built on are still present.”

Royce Da 5’9″ added, “This is definitely our best work to date, without a doubt.”

In the tradition of the show, they closed things out with a freestyle in “The Backroom.” With Just Blaze on the turntables, Joe, Royce, Joell Ortiz, and Crooked I all took turns rapping before Em took the mic. He killed the instrumental and spit his bars acapella.

Watch Em and his crew murder the mic.

“The Backroom” Freestyle

Eminem on Kendrick Lamar

The Evolution of Eminem