eminem rock and roll hall of fame induction 2022 performance and speech

Medley of Honors to Induct Eminem to Rock n Roll Hall of Fame & Speech (Video + Pictures)

Eminem was inducted into the coveted Rock n Roll Hall of Fame list last night, one of the highest honors a musical artist could achieve–a once-in-a-lifetime achievement.

Eminem was accompanied by his daughter and one of the lead roles in his lyrics throughout his career, Hailie Jade Mathers. Regardless of Hall of Fame, it is really good to see that Eminem has a functioning relationship with his daughter after all the turmoil they endured when she was growing up.

Hailie Jade, Eminem's daughter sitting next to Eminem at Hall of Fame induction ceremony (Image: freep.com)
Hailie Jade, Eminem’s daughter sitting next to Eminem at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony (Image: freep.com)

Here’s how the night of Hall of Fame 2022 went for Eminem.

Eminem’s long-time friend and mentor, Dr. Dre had the honor of inducting Eminem into the Hall of Fame. Dr. Dre had very inspirational words to say about Eminem;

“So, when I started working on this speech, I asked Eminem if there’s anything specific he’d like me to say to everybody and he said, ‘number one, I want you to tell everybody I have a huge p*nis’.”

Very inspiring. Moving on…

“Over 20 years ago, Jimmy Iovine, who is also one of tonight’s inductees and one of my best friends sent a demo tape to me from a guy who called himself Eminem. The first thing I said when I listened to it was ‘what the f… did he just say?’. I loved it so much, I could not stop listening to it. A few days later Jimmy called me up and said ‘Hey Dre, you know he’s a white guy, right?’. Completely f***ed me up.

The last thing I was thinking when I was listening to the music was ‘that he was a white guy.’ It never even crossed my mind. Looking back, I don’t know why it didn’t cross my mind. He certainly didn’t sound like a black rapper especially because of what he was saying. I guess it was my ignorance to think that ‘okay if you’re a rapper, you must be black.’

Not too long after that, we met for the first time. We hit it off and the next thing you know, we’re working in the studio at my house working. The first time I put him on a beat, he got on the mic and said ‘Hi, My Name Is…Slim Shady.'”

This short recap tells the story of the discovery of Eminem from being an underground artist and handing over free mixtapes at street corners to taking the first step in becoming a legitimate artist.

All credit to Dr. Dre for not seeing colors at the time and only recognizing true talent. This is especially important considering that rap and hip hop was predominantly a genre owned by black artists.

“Boom. That was it. That was the beginning of what became an amazing career of collaboration.

Then came the backlash.

‘Look at him Dre. This guy has blue eyes. You can’t sign him.’ There was a massive amount of resistance from my own team and the people around me. They didn’t want me to work with him. Simply because he was white. They didn’t want me to sign him on anything like that.

While everyone else around me had their doubts, I knew that his gifts were undeniable. Yeah, his raw dark humorous lyrics coupled with impeccable cadence, stood out from everything I have ever heard before.

And he was hungry. Both of us were. We were two artists in do-or-die situations. He was desperate to find a way to feed his family and I was searching for something I could sink my teeth into. Each of us were exactly what the other one needed. And I was willing to bet my entire career on him.

My rebuttal to those nay-sayers was something like this; ‘He’s gonna be the best-selling artist on our label.’ Little did I know, he was gonna be one of the best-selling artists of all time.

From the moment he introduced himself to the world of ‘Slim Shady LP,’ he skyrocketed to the charts and stayed there for 100 weeks, earning himself a Grammy for ‘Best Rap Album,’ ‘Best Rap Solo Performance,’ and can you believe after promoting violence to little children, killing his daughter’s mother, this guy had more sh*t to get off his chest?’

Ed Sheeran joins Eminem to perform "Stan" at Hall of Fame induction ceremony (Image: nme.com)
Ed Sheeran joins Eminem to perform “Stan” at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony (Image: nme.com)

Dre continued;

And then the sophomore album comes out. ‘The Marshall Mathers LP’ comes. On that album alone, his alter-ego Slim Shady, tied me up in a basement, he has sex with his mother, and killed his daughter’s mother again, while proceeding to offend about every special interest group we had. And it clearly struck a chord and became one of the fastest-selling albums in United States history.

Eminem would go on to overdose, relapse, recover and not only in albums but in real life (as well). Let me tell you something. This guy goes through a lot of sh*t just to get a concept to a song.

But, here’s Eminem’s genius with his incredibly wild imagination he was able to hold up a mirror to White America, while also expressing pain. Through poverty, dysfunctional families, and devoid of hope, Eminem brought hip-hop to middle America, and all those kids who looked like him a way to connect to him.

Hip-hop wasn’t just for black kids in desperate circumstances anymore. People of all stripes and colors had an art form to speak to their struggles. Eminem wasn’t just the underdog who broke through the glass ceiling of hip hop, he shattered that sh*t.”

Over 220 million albums sold. 13 number-one albums. 10 of which, debuted at number 1, making him the first artist to achieve this sh*t.

Grammy Awards, an Emmy, and an Oscar, making him the best-selling artist of the 2000s. Best-selling hip-hop artist ever. Let me repeat that. Best-selling hip-hop artist ever.

Crazy part about it is, he doesn’t even really care about that. I think I cared about it more than he did. What’s most important to him is that he earned the respect of his peers as one of the best to ever do it. Point blank. Turns out, this unassuming white guy with blue eyes from Detroit being repeatedly challenged at, and turning everything we thought we knew about hip hop on itself while forcing us to confront our own biases, growing not only the genre but all of us right along with him. Point blank.

After this amazing speech by Dr. Dre, a video montage of Eminem’s best and most controversial moments and snippets of his biggest hits plays on the big screen. A line-up of some of the biggest hip-hop artists is seen talking about Eminem and his genius. The video montage also includes clips of speeches by Eminem himself talking about how much hip hop mattered to him all through his life.

Next, the segment breaks into a medley of hits by Eminem. The medley kicks off with “My Name Is,” a song that is synonymous with everything that Eminem/Slim Shady stands for. This song breaks into another Eminem classic “Rap God,” in which he goes on to perform a large portion of the song along with the supersonic verse.

Steven Tyler joins Eminem to perform "Sing For The Moment" at Hall of Fame 2022 (Image: ultimateclassicrock.com)
Steven Tyler joins Eminem to perform “Sing For The Moment” at Hall of Fame 2022 (Image: ultimateclassicrock.com)

Next, Eminem is accompanied by the legendary Steven Tyler to perform Eminem’s iconic hit “Sing For The Moment.” Steven Tyler opens the segment with his band’s iconic hit “Dream On,” from which the “Sing For The Moment” track’s hook is sampled from.

Ed Sheeran takes the stage to help Eminem perform his eponymous hit “Stan.” Ed Sheeran performed the hook of the song.

Following these, Eminem goes into a streak of solo performances; his verse on “Forever” by Drake and ending with the inspirational hit “Not Afraid.”

Eminem accepting Rock and Roll Hall of Fame award from Dr. Dre (Image: eminem.news)
Eminem accepting Rock and Roll Hall of Fame award from Dr. Dre (Image: eminem.news)

Accepting the award, Eminem went on to thank an extensive list of colleagues for inspiring him and alsp talked about his overdose.

“I realize what an honor it is right now to be here up here tonight, and what a privilege it is to do the music that I love. Music basically saved my life … I’ll keep this as painless as possible. I’m f*cking stuttering and shit. I’m probably not supposed to actually be here tonight because of a couple of reasons. One, I know that I’m a rapper, and this is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There’s only a few of us who have been inducted already. Secondly, I almost died from an overdose in 2007, which kind of sucked. Hailie, plug your ears. Because drugs were fucking delicious. I thought we had a good thing going on, but I had to go and fuck it all up. Goddamn.”

Next, Eminem went on to thank at least 40 hip-hop legends who inspired him and essentially saved his life. The list included names such as Big Pun, Big L, The Notorious BIG, Tupac, Dr. Dre, LL Cool J, Run DMC, Fat Joe, 2 Live Crew, Beastie Boys, Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie, Chuck D, EPMD, House of Pain, Ice Cube, Ice T, Kool G Rap, KRS One, Rakim, Black Thought, Melly Mel, Nas, Outkast, Andre 3000, Queen Latifa, Redman, Slick Rick, Snoop Dogg, The Roots, Wu-Tang Clan.

“Those were my watchdogs, man. I just wanna say that those were just a few of the names that I hope are considered in the future for induction because without them a lot of us wouldn’t be here.”

What a humble legend!

Watch the full performance and speech by Eminem at Rock n Roll Hall of Fame 2022

Check out the full discography by Eminem that landed him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2022.

Update

Later in the day, former D12 member and long-time friend of Eminem, Bizarre went on to Instagram to pen a heartfelt congratulation.

Man where do I begin… we started off two kids from Detroit with the dream to some rappers … we put so much work into this from the days on Novara The days on 7 mile in Fairport.. catching the bus to how I can be down in Florida to meeting and Paul Rosenberg New York… to the rap battles with Wendy day … I think the worst day of my life was when my mom out and move me to Dallas Texas at the middle of our journey .but I guess God has something planned for us because a month later you got signed to doctor Dre….. so I want to just want give u your flowers and thank you for being a big brother and always believing in me believing in us d12 … !Man rock ‘n roll Hall of Fame… wow !… I couldn’t be more happier congratulations!! @eminem … u know Proof and Bugz are smiling right know .. ❤️

Bigger update

In a surprising turn of events, Eminem’s mother, Debbie Mathers, who has been the subject of many of Eminem’s hateful songs, released a video congratulating Eminem.

“I wanna say Marshall, I could not let this day go by without congratulating you on your induction to the Hall of Fame. I love you very much. I knew you would get there. It’s been a long ride. I am very proud of you. I am also very proud of Hailie Jade, my big girl. You guys are doing a very good job on your podcast (referring to Hailie’s new podcast ‘Just a Little Shady’). God bless you guys. I love you very much.”

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