Tensions will be running high at the July 31st Bristow, Va., show of the 2001 Warped tour when Eminem and D12 join the tour and perform on the same stage as Overcore’s Esham, who slams his fellow Detroiter Eminem and partners D12 on his latest album “Tongues.”
Esham issues a warning to the D-12 crew in the song “All Night Every Day”: “The styles that you runnin’ round with is ours. You and them Shady suckers is nothin’ but cowards. Bang your brains in the dirt make you go bizerk, if you rap with Emily your ass gonna get murked.”
In the July 26th August 1st issue of Real Detroit Magazine the weekly publication describes the bitter rivalry between the artists:
“Even if D-12 copied Esham’s style, as long as they gave props to him as being their undisputed influence everything would be alright. All those thousands of people who bought the D-12 album would in turn check out Esham and turn him into the Black Sabbath of rap. But it didn’t happen. Instead, Eminem dissed Esham (in this very publication in fact).
Esham’s response: “You got big conglomerates like Interscope putting their record out, and I’m just a regular guy running an independent company, and mother f
kers are trying to assassinate our character. (Eminem and D12) be biting everything we do and act like they are doing something new. I don’t care if they diss other people, but don’t diss people from Detroit. Don’t try to tear down the community that we built up.”
The rivalry began when D12 opened for Lil Kim in Detroit. When Proof called Esham on stage, he took the mic from Proof and started hyping the crowd. Believing he was trying to upstage D12, the rap group’s friends attacked Esham. He said to Murder Dog. “So I got to fighting with like 10 mother fuckers on stage.”
