Kanye West Was So In Awe Of Eminem The Producer He Tried To Steal His Drum Sounds

Folks don't usually think of Eminem as a producer.

But Kanye West certainly does.  Before Ye became Ye, he was in awe of Shady's production skills and rated Eminem top five behind the boards.

In fact, Kanye once tried to swipe Em's drum sounds.

Ye explained what went down in a 2004 interview with Scratch

“I had to work with D12, right?” Kanye remembered. “And I think Eminem is a dope-ass producer, so I wanted to ask him to trade drums but I was intimidated because he was such a superstar and everything.”

So when Em left the studio, Ye moved in.

“I’m going to try and get as many sounds copied before they come in,” he recalled. “I started copying them and the next thing I know an engineer comes in and straight grabs the disk and leaves.”

While he didn't come away with any stolen plunder, he did learn some studio tricks from Eminem.

"I started seeing how he do, doing sh*t I wouldn’t do because I still had certain rules. If somebody’s a new producer they’ll do sh*t like speed the snare up +8, and that’s sh*t I wouldn’t do because I’m like, ‘I am sampling this snare.’ I was seeing how he truncated sounds, like chopping the air completely. It gives it a certain sound, the sound he wanted. I learned a lot going through Eminem’s drum set. Hopefully, he’ll take it as a compliment.