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ROYCE DA 5’9″ TALKS SOBRIETY, LAYERS, DR. DRE, EMINEM AND MORE WITH COMPLEX

Royce 5’9″ stopped by the Complex offices to sit down with our Editor-in-Chief Noah Callahan-Bever to speak in-depth on his career, getting sober, and more. The inimitable Detroit rapper is currently gearing up to release his next album, Layers, next month, and spoke on the journey towards his new album, which includes his decision to get sober back in 2012. “I just woke up one day and I felt like I was up,” he says. “I made the necessary phone calls. I called Marshall [Mathers] and said, ‘Yo, I’m stopping drinking.'”

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ROYCE DA 5’9″ – TABERNACLE

Royce Da 5’9″ drops the first single from his forthcoming album LAYERS in the form of “Tabernacle.” Produced by Symbolic 1 and J. Rhodes, Nickle gets introspective and recalls a crazy story about dealing with the loss of his grandmother and birth of his child.

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ROYCE DA 5’9″ ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM

It’s been five years since the last Royce Da 5’9″ solo album so it’s about that time for Nickle to drop a new album. With that comes the announcement of Layers dropping on April 15th via Bad Half Entertainment/INgrooves. It will be executive produced by Denaun Porter and looks to be Royce attempting to show how much he has grown over the past few years as an artist.

“This album was the first album that I spent a lot of time putting it together as a complete thought,” explains Royce Da 5’9.” “Most of my albums reflect an emotion based off of my feelings. Death Is Certain was dark because of everything I was going through; this album reflects my emotion, but also my thoughts. I’ve learned a lot from being apart of Bad Meets Evil, Slaughterhouse and PRhyme and I’ve had the opportunity to use all of those experiences to better myself as artist, so it’s very exciting to see how those experiences will affect my career.”

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DJ ECLIPSE DROPS EMINEM & ROYCE DA 5’9″ HALFTIME SHOW EPISODE FROM 1998

Seventeen years ago, Eminem and Royce Da 5’9″ were still young bucks trying to find their way into the music industry. With the holiday spirit in the air, DJ Eclipse drops this special 1998 episode of the Halftime Show were Bad Meets Evil shows up to show out.

Courtesy of Eclipse:

Merry Christmas everyone! Here goes another Halftime show from ’98 with guests Eminem and Royce Da 5’9″ (85:53). Short interview right into the freestyle session (if only cats today were as hungry as the 90s generation). As usual, Riz sets off the show lovely and then half way through I get on to finish up. Always good listening to the mic breaks to see what was going on during that time (i.e. Tramps shows, Fat Beats in-stores, new mixer…thanks Fat Beats!) (52:25). So much good music played. Last mic break at 147:39. Enjoy.

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PRHYME: DELUXE (ALBUM STREAM)

The deluxe version of Royce Da 5’9″ and DJ Premier’s PRhyme album is now here for your listening pleasure. So go ahead and hit play for some more rugged rhymes and raw beats courtesy of DJ Premier and Royce Da 5’9″ with some assistance from a collection of superfriends.

Stream it and then buy it.

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PRHYME FEAT. BLACK THOUGHT – WISHIN’ 2

Black Thought was originally supposed to be on the PRhyme album but the unexpected death of The Roots’ manager caused the emcee to not make the album. However, with the deluxe version of the album dropping, Black Thought ends up on the remix to “Wishin'” and replaces Common with a disgustingly ill verse. If you haven’t ordered the album by now, what are you waiting for?