Eminem sat down for a quarantine update with Sway this week, and he revealed an awkward interaction he had with Michael Jordan. Speaking alongside his longtime manager Paul Rosenberg, Em told Sway that he was working on a possible shoe collaboration with MJ at one point in time. He believes that an ill-timed joke of his resulted in that deal falling apart, however.
"I don't know Paul, if you remember this. We were talking about doing some kind of shoe together... Everything was cool, he's super cool, and everything was good until we get to the end of the phone call and I said, 'Yo man when are you gonna come to Detroit so I can dunk on you.' And it was crickets," Em said at the 3:30 point of the interview. "I don't remember exactly what he said, but I think he just kinda like, just laughed and I remember getting off the phone going, 'Oh my God I think I might have just blew it.'"
Paul Rosenberg added that they have since done business together following that phone call, but Em was "mortified" by the experience in the immediate aftermath. "Because to me in my head it was a total joke, right?" he continued. "It's so ridiculous for me to think that I could dunk on Jordan, right? So in my head, it's one of those things that you think is gonna be funnier in your head than when you actually say it. So I don't know what happened after that."
"It was one of those things that in my head just it would be so ridculous, he has to know I am joking. But when I got off the phone, I remember thinking, 'I don't think he knew I was joking.' 'Cause you know, he's very competitive," Em adds.
Elsewhere in the interview, Em spoke about life in quarantine and his efforts to help with COVID-19. He also mentioned that he had been working on an extensive playlist for his fans to dig into, tentatively titled, 'Music to Be Quarantined To.'
Eminem also talked about the late Juice WRLD, whom he collaborated with on "Godzilla" from his January album Music to be Murdered By. "Juice WRLD man, his freestyle that he did, when he went on Tim Westwood and rapped for like an hour straight was incredible," Em said. "Especially for coming off the top of the dome. Because a lot of people just can't do that, or they might not know there's an art to that." He added that he discovered Juice because he's committed to keeping up with the current state of hip-hop in order to not be "washed away."
Listen to the full interview above.
