EPMD’s Erick Sermon recently joined Math Hoffa on his show "My Expert Opinion" to shed light on the genesis of Nas' track "EPMD 2" featuring Eminem.
Erick shared, “Nas had called for the permission to use EPMD name, that happened, and then Hit-Boy was like ‘yo, you wanna jump on the record?’ I’m like ‘hell yeah, I jump on the song.'” He went on to admit that initially, he wasn't sure how to approach the writing process. “I really didn’t even know about what to do [write] so I was trying to go on what Nas was talking about. It was Covid. So, the s–t was going on so I was trying to being political with that cause I probably would have came different. Especially knowing that Eminem was coming up behind me.”
“So, you know, MCing, I don’t give a f–k if I can’t get him. I’m not gonna do that. If I know that Em is right there [Em is reckless]. And then, Nas said, ‘oh yeah, Eric, I put Em on the record.’ I was like ‘HUH?!’ We had 16 [bars] but he cut it because Em was going long. So, he only gave us 8. But it was cool. I respect that he called it EPMD. That was cool.”
Erick Sermon expressed his readiness to keep pushing boundaries, saying, “I would have kept saying metaphors, I would have kept going. Causse, I’m here, I wrote the whole thing so I would have went cause I’m not afraid.”