Cxvpher (Behind the Scenes)

James Larese: What's up? I'm James Larese from Syndrome. Each emcee and each artist on Shady is going to be shooting a custom a cappella verse in their hometown. When we put it all together it's really just gonna show, you know, all of these unique, amazing solo artists have to come together to create this conglomerate, which makes up Shady Records Joell Ortiz: Yaowa! It's your boy Joell Ortiz. Brooklyn's own in the building. And right now we are in Brooklyn. Brooklyn, New York, man. Sharing time with the fine gentlemen at Shady Records, with its fifteen-year anniversary album. And a cypher. I just contributed my verse because, uh, we want to represent the cypher the correct way - not that anybody's respectively doing it the wrong way, but we doing it the right way over here. Shady and Joell Ortiz Took you to the pier over here in Brooklyn Bridge Park and, uh, did what he did. Shady 15 is — it's incredible to me, to be honest with you, because it doesn't feel like fifteen years. I guess time flies when you're having fun I got a Shady Records memory: in the XXL office while we were shooting the cover... we also had the contracts to where Slaughterhouse officially became a part of, uh, Shady Records. I remember Em signing — I think it was a twenty — and hit me like, "Here... here's your advance for your record deal." And everybody was just crying, bro. That day'll stay with me forever, man James Larese: So we're here at the George Washington Bridge where we're gonna be shooting Joe Budden. I'm pretty excited to shoot this one, as we're gonna be actually on the bridge. It's definitely separated from the traffic, but it is loud Joe Budden: What's going on? It's your man "Jump Off" Joe Beezy, one-quarter of the supergroup Slaughterhouse. Proud representative of Jersey City, New Jersey. As you see, on the George Washington Bridge. We ready to shoot the Shady Cxvpher. Shout out to all the good folk over at Shady. I want to shout out Marshall. I want to thank Marshall. Less like a label, more like a family. We doing family shit James Larese: You know, it's really gonna be interesting how when capturing each of these artists in their own background is that they're just gonna bring their own flavor. You know what I mean? And when we put it all together we're really gonna see that individualism. Breaks the tradition of a traditional cypher. And, you know, it really kind of showcases where they're from and what's got them to where they are today Kxng Crooked: Yo, what's up? It's your boy Crooked, man. I'm out here in Long Beach, California. You know what I'm saying? The heart and soul of the East Side right now, okay? We on Long Beach Boulevard and PCH. You know what I'm saying? Pacific Coast Highway. So when you hear Nate Dogg — rest in peace, Snoop Dogg, Warren G, The Dogg Pound, Daz, everybody. When they talk about Long Beach, East Side, that's where we are, right here The cypher shit is to remind people that no matter if we do radio records, club records, whatever — we still get busy on the mic. You know what I'm saying? And I hear a lot of rappers talking about they wanna battle Slaughterhouse — you don't want to battle Slaughterhouse. I even hear niggas saying they want to battle Eminem. That shit it preposterous. I'm expecting this shit to be raw, like dope-like. I think it's gon' be the best cypher since the last one we did. I don't think nobody topped the last one. That's just my personal opinion. I could be wrong. I could be biased James Larese: Now we're shooting Yela's cypher. We're, like, in the backwoods. It's pretty amazing. It's one of those locations that you just can't make this up. So essentially... (Motorcycle revving) And that's basically the cypher. I mean, stylistically we took it out of a nerve in environment here, most definitely. And you're — as you can see, you're very rural. But you know what? That's the point of this: it's bring each emcee on Shady to their environment Yelawolf: What's up? I'm Yelawolf. We just shot the cypher. This is the way I would prefer to do it. If I had a choice, I would do it like this. You know, in my own element, with my own environment. You know, doing a cypher around some turntables with other rappers and shit. You know, that's fun. But this is, uh, kind of looking into my world Paul Rosenberg: This is Michigan Theater. We shot scenes from 8 Mile here. We also shot the "Lose Yourself" video here. Essentially what you've got is this inside of this old, beautiful theater here downtown that they, at some point, gutted and turned into a parking lot. So the parking lot's actually built inside the floor walls of the theater. And you've got these amazing remnants of the theater and this very ornate ceiling and alcoves and archways Anyway, we came back here to film the cypher because we thought that, you know, anything connected to 8 Mile and freestyle rapping would be appropriate. So it's cool to revisit the place this many years later and appropriate given the fact that it's the fifteenth anniversary of the label. And obviously one of the biggest songs that we put out ever was from 8 Mile: a little diddy called "Lose Yourself." So here we are, back where we filmed the "Lose Yourself" video and we're still rapping Royce da 5'9": We just finished rapping the cypher. You know, knocked everything out in a couple of hours. Easy work. Me and Marshall just ran through our verses a couple times Mines isn't about anything in particular. You know, I normally just spit a lot gun bars, especially when I gotta rhyme a cappella. I just spit a lot of bars about violence and guns, and a bunch of things where I'm just kind of painting a picture like a screenwriter I mean, I got tons of Shady Records memories. I mean, shit, my Shady Records memories go all the way back — all the way to '99. My Up in Smoke Tour experiences was really, really crazy. You know, back when Em used to get crazy. That's when everything was crazy. A lot of tour bus memories. A lot of stuff I don't care to talk about. Not that I'm thinking about it. The Shady 15 thing comes out 11/24. I can tell you that it's very crazy James Larese: We just finished with Em and Royce. I mean, Em did it in one take. Like, it was insane. It literally went for six-and-a-half minutes. It goes without saying that Shady 2.0, the first cypher they did for the BET Awards, defiantly was next-level but this one takes it just to a whole 'nother — a whole 'nother planet. You know, I'm just excited for the world to see this because I think this is gonna set the standards that many will try to duplicate but none will ever be able to replicate