Eminem’s Thank You Call To ‘Rap God’ Producer Made His ‘Knees Get Weak’

DVLP talks to MTV News about handing the beat over to Em for The Marshall Mathers LP 2 track.

Eminem’s “Rap God” may have just came out last week, but for producer DVLP, the track has been two years in the making.

“I was just trying to do whatever makes me happy. I never really make tracks with artists in mind,” the New York beatsmith told MTV News on Monday of the track that he co-produced with his partner Filthy.

DVLP has logged in work with the Diplomats, Rick Ross and Lil Wayne; but when DVLP’s manager Stephen Hacker began shopping around “Rap God,” there were artists other the running.

“Before it got to Em, it was talked about for like T.I. — I don’t know who else, maybe Fab or something. Even when they said those names, it was like, that’s not really where I hear this record going. It’s not that kind of record,” he said. “Thankfully everything worked out where it made its way over to the Shady side.”

The instrumental went to the “Shady side” last fall, DVLP estimated. While the producer spends most of his time in the studio, he wasn’t around while Em was crafting the record, which will appear on November 5’s The Marshall Mathers LP 2. Like the rest of us, DVLP heard the heard the finished product on October 14. It has since hit #1 on Billboard Digital Songs chart.

DVLP remembers being sick with the flu on the day the song dropped and couldn’t quite bring himself to listen, but then he got a call from Eminem. “I still didn’t even hear the record, so I don’t know how that looks to Marshall, but he was like, ‘Dude, how’s it going? Thank you so much,’ ” DVLP remembers of his first conversation with the superstar rapper.

“I heard it, then I had to hear it again, and I had to hear it again and again and then I called back,” he said. “He was like, ‘Dude, I swear this is one of the illest beats I’ve ever heard.’ That alone, my knees got weak. It wasn’t the flu, it was definitely that guy.”