via Jam Canoe
Detroit rapper Royce Da 5'9", a.k.a. Ryan Montgomery, wants you to know his new supergroup Slaughterhouse is the best of the best.
But that doesn't mean he takes criticism lightly.
Some major names in hip-hop will shine at the Edmonton Event Centre tonight (Check The Rhyme concert Friday, April 16), including Del the Funky Homosapien, Pharoahe Monch and, of course, headliners Slaughterhouse -- a group that also includes Joe Budden, Joell Ortiz and Crooked I.
"Right now the message is just basically to convince everybody that we are the best, nobody's better than us," Montgomery says of his new crew's lyrical agenda.
Slaughterhouse formed after Budden featured the other three group members on a track from his Halfway House album, to overwhelmingly positive reactions from online fans.
The praise was too much to ignore, and the four veteran lyricists bring their A-games to the table on Slaughterhouse's self-titled debut album, which was released last year.
Critics have mostly been kind, but when someone knocks their rhymes, it smarts a bit for Montgomery.
"I think I hold what people think to a higher regard than I should. The writers and all of that, they get under my skin," he admits. "I look at all the reviews, I look at all the comments.
"There's a lot of artists that don't even pay attention to the comments because they don't wanna get moved by it, they don't wanna feel a certain way about it.
"It'll bother me, and I know I shouldn't be lettin' it bother me, but I'll let it bother me anyway and it'll push me harder next time."
Few rappers have hotter credentials than Royce. He's ghostwritten for the likes of Dr. Dre and P. Diddy, and has been turning heads since the late '90s when he formed a duo called Bad Meets Evil with fellow Detroit rapper Eminem.
He later had a falling out with Eminem's group D12, which resulted in an ongoing public feud.
But the two have since made up, and though Montgomery isn't quite the celebrity his ex-cohort is, he has no self-pity.
"There's been times when I've been overlooked, or sometimes I feel a bit underrated, but I can only blame myself for that," he says.
He recalls past opportunities with record labels that he simply wasn't prepared for when they rolled around.
"When I signed my first deal, I got a multi-million dollar deal two times in a row. It was set up for me to just take off. I don't think personally that I delivered all of the right records," he says.
"I didn't have the mechanics of writing songs and making complete albums all the way down yet.
"I didn't know how to bring across my natural personality and nail interviews, and everything that comes along with catapulting yourself to the next level."
Now, he insists, he's "so prepared, it's pathetic."
And who better to help catapult Slaughterhouse than Montgomery's old partner in crime?
His quartet is currently primed to sign with Eminem's label, Shady Records, a branch of Universal.
"We've got the deal on the table right now," he says, adding the major label backing could take Slaughterhouse to the status of his most notorious collaborators.
"We conquered the underground already. Now we're ready to show people that we can take it to the next level."
But money and fame pale in importance to what he's really after: sweeping critical acclaim.
"I want to be looked at as the best ever," he says.
