In April 2018, it was revealed that Eminem was once again hitting the studio, joined by his "talented friend Jessie." Months later, Kamikaze emerged out of the blue, featuring two appearances from Canadian singer Jessie Reyez, including the emotional single "Good Guy." Many were immediately taken by her voice, which evokes memories of Nelly Furtado's early-game run, and sought out her deeper catalog. October's Being Human In Public helped push her further into the spotlight, and the recent "Imported" remix with 6LACK further cemented her a friend of hip-hop. Now, sitting down with Zane Lowe, Reyez opened up about working with one of the rap game's legends.
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"It was sick. He's mad sick, man. That's crazy to work with a legend. Another legend. Here in LA. Man, it was cool to be able to come up with it in front of him too, because it wasn't something that was copy and paste, it was like, we vibed, we met, Rosenberg was there," explains Reyez. "He played me some beats and I was like, oh this is cool. Sometimes I have my notebook, I always have notebooks, and I write stuff down sometimes. If the faucet's too wide, and there's too many things coming, then I gotta do that, right? But every now and then, I'll get blessed, and it'll just come and so I'm just rocking, and I'm trying to hear it, and I'm trying to catch it, and I'm just figuring out the words, and Rosenberg and him were there, and they're just vibing and chilling."
"And then it was there. Then it just came. Then I was like, cool let's do it," she continues. "And we did it, and he was like, "You never had this before?" I'm like, "Nah." He was like, "That's dope." And I was like, "Yeah!" Crazy, man. It was nuts to be able to get that praise from him. It's crazy. He's mad talented. Working with him was sick, and I love ... He's super sarcastic, man, and I'm fluent in sarcasm, so we were just right here, it was perfect. Love it."
For more from Jessie, be sure to check out the full interview courtesy of Zane Lowe, available on iTune.