Boi 1-da And The New Royales Explain Working On Eminem's Recovery

Liz Rodrigues, Erik Alcock and Boi 1-da tell ILuvLola.net how they ended up on Eminem's double-platinum "Recovery" album.

Eminem’s Recovery has sold an estimated 2.6 million copies and remained on Billboard magazine’s Hot 200 album’s chart for 14 weeks, after peaking at the number one position. With Dr. Dre only co-producing one track, some listeners may not have been familiar with all of the album’s contributors. A recent interview with Lola Plaku of ILuvLola.net illustrated how a few of the collaborations came to life.

“If you’re writing for some Emo band, you’re gonna have different lyrics,” said Erik Alcock, who also worked with DJ Khalil, Chin Injeti and Liz Rodrugues in The New Royales. Alcock and Rodrigues lent their vocal, instrumental and writing skills to the Recovery tracks “Almost Famous,” and “Won’t Back Down,” both of which were produced by Khalil.

“The whole lyric aspect is just doing us without thinking,” Rodrigues said. “As soon as we start thinking, it screws everything up. We don’t even know them.”

While Boi 1-da had worked with Eminem previously on the single “Forever,” he agreed, and added that most artists don’t end up rhyming over the beats he picked specifically for them.

“I never thought Eminem would pick ‘Not Afraid,’” Boi 1-da said. “I originally made that for Drake, but Eminem ended up taking it. I was happy…I mean, it’s Eminem!”
-Omar Burgess