The performance started with Wayne, wearing a white jacket and white T-shirt that read “Listen to Lil Wayne,” spitting his opening verse from “Drop the World.”
“I got ice in my veins, blood in my eyes/ Hate in my heart, love on my mind/ I seen nights full of pain, days of the same/ You keep the sunshine, save me the rain.”
After his verse and chorus, Eminem walked onstage to audio problems, his live vocals were inaudible over the track. Slim Shady, who filmed the video to the song Saturday with Wayne. kicked in with his rapid-fire flow just as the mic began to work again.
Dwayne Michael Carter, better known by his stage name Lil Wayne, is an American rapper. Formerly a member of the rap group the Hot Boys, he joined the Cash Money Records collective as a teenager. Get It How U Live!, released in 1997, was Lil Wayne’s first album with Hot Boys, and Tha Block Is Hot, his solo debut, came out in 1999.
After gaining fame with two other albums in the early 2000s, Lil Wayne reached higher popularity with 2004’s Tha Carter and its two subsequent albums Tha Carter II (2005) and Tha Carter III (2008). He earned various accolades following Tha Carter III, including eight Grammy Awards nominations. He has had two number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 (“Lollipop” featuring Static Major and “Down” with Jay Sean). He will release a rock album titled Rebirth in 2010.
Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), better known by his stage name Eminem, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter and actor. Eminem quickly gained popularity in 1999 with his major-label debut album The Slim Shady LP, which won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. The following album, The Marshall Mathers LP, became the fastest-selling hip hop album in history. It brought Eminem increased popularity, including his own record label, Shady Records, and brought his group project D12 to mainstream recognition.
The Marshall Mathers LP and his third album, The Eminem Show also won Grammy Awards, making Eminem the first artist to win Best Rap Album for three consecutive LP’s. He then won the award again in 2010 for his album Relapse, giving him a total of 11 grammys in his career. In 2002, he won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Lose Yourself” from the film 8 Mile, in which he also played the lead. “Lose Yourself” would go on to become the longest running #1 hip-hop single. Eminem then went on hiatus after touring in 2005. He released his first album since 2004’s Encore, titled Relapse, on May 15, 2009. Eminem is the best-selling artist of the decade, and has sold more than 80 million albums worldwide to date, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. Eminem is also ranked as one of the 100 Greatest Artists of All-Time by Rolling Stone magazine. He was also named the Best Rapper Ever by Vibe magazine. Including his work with D12, Eminem has achieved eight #1 albums on the Billboard Top 200 and 12 number one singles worldwide. In December, 2009 Eminem was named the Artist of the Decade by Billboard Magazine. According to Billboard, Eminem has two of his albums among the top 5 highest selling albums of the 2000s.
