Exclusive – Eminem is often considered one of the best MCs in Hip Hop history. With over 100 one thousand thousand albums sold and a discography that stretches dorsum to the 1990s, Slim Shady has paid his dues and then some. But earlier he was the self-professed "Rap God," he was Marshall Mathers, an aspiring rapper from Detroit who lived on 8 Mile Road and attended open mics at the Hip Hop Shop on Westward 7 Mile equally a teen.

Much like the 2002 film 8 Mile,Eminem found himself face to face with some vicious battle rappers prepare to lyrically stomp him into the ground. And, yes, he typically emerged victorious. But in 1997 while participating in the Rap Olympics during the Rap Canvass convention at the Red King of beasts Hotel in Los Angeles, Eminem met his match — Otherwize.

The infamous face up-off is role of the new documentary Where We're From: Rise of LA Secret Hip Hopthat was put together by Element co-founders DJ Breeze and DJ Bonds who were both instrumental in establishing the clandestine Hip Hop scene. In the prune, Otherwize and Eminem become head-to-head, with Em spouting off lines such as, "I got so many ways to diss you lot that I'm playful with you/I let a razor split you until they have to staple run up yous … Damn, all your white jokes just backfired."

But Otherwize ultimately took the crown. In an exclusive interview with HipHopDX, DJ Breeze said it wasn't a landslide by any means.

"Eminem held his own as well," he tells DX. "The boxing with Wize had to go extra rounds because these dudes were going at it. The battle had besides a slight racial overtone to information technology. Obviously 'crusade there were few white rappers at the fourth dimension. And so it definitely started to accept on the feel of Blackness versus white. I will say this, the boxing between those two guys was phenomenal. Information technology had to go extra rounds because at 1 point it simply seem like they were so evenly matched.

"Even though you could experience the oversupply wanting Otherwize to win, you couldn't deny Eminem's skill set up. Just I do experience confidently 100 percentage that Otherwize did win the battle. Did he blow them out of the water? No, he did not. But he did win."

He adds, "It as well adds a kind of lore to Otherwize'southward name considering Eminem bought all the footage so nobody could run across the battle."

DJ Bonds and DJ Breeze knew what Otherwize was up against. They'd heard through the grapevine Dr. Dre was working with a new artist — a white guy.

"At that time, it was rare to run into white rappers, and we all knew that was also a reason why Dre was working with Em besides his skills as an MC," Breeze says. "To exist quite honest, these out-of-towners came in and really underestimated these L.A. MCs. Why? Because at that time, Los Angeles' cloak-and-dagger Hip Hop scene was still merely getting warmed upwardly. So, I think these guys came in and thought they could merely run over these guys. But MC'south here in our metropolis quickly let it be known that this was not gonna be an piece of cake battle."

After Otherwize won the grand prize — $500 and a Rolex watch — he says he blew all of his money at the bar and got the Rolex stolen. As he says in the doc, "What do you want to know about my hard times?"

Eminem later addressed the loss while speaking to Rock The Bells radio, a clip that'south also included in the film.

"I don't remember one line he said, simply he was screaming in my face and I'm similar, 'Oh shit,'" he said. "And everybody'due south like, 'Oh, he's killin' him, he's killing him,' but I had already choked. So it didn't actually matter what the guy did. And I lost. So I was like, 'Fuck!'"

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In 2020, Eminem recalled how that incident ultimately led to a deal with Dr. Dre during an interview with Mike Tyson's Hotboxin' podcast.

"I went to the Olympics, got all the mode to the end, and so lost to the terminal guy. The guy who won was Otherwize, from LA. Information technology was a local thing. They had a bunch of crowd back up at that place. When I rapped, he went and hid backside a video screen. He walked away while I was rapping. I didn't have anyone to battle! I'd never been in a state of affairs like that before. I went through a lot of people to become through to the end, and then he walked abroad while I was rapping. I'thou similar, 'What the fuck do I practice?' I was devastated.

"I come off stage. I'g like, that's it. It's over for me. This child from Interscope, Dean Geistlinger, walks over and he asks me for a copy of the CD. So I kind of just chuck it at him. It was The Slim Shady EP. We come dorsum to Detroit, I have no fucking dwelling house, no idea what I'm gonna practise. Then, a couple weeks afterward, nosotros become a call. Marky Bass said, "Yo, we got a call from a doctor!"

As DJ Cakewalk recalls, "I call back it was simply a couple months after the Rap Olympics that we heard the song 'My Name Is' and the residue is history. But I do know this, Los Angeles MC were certainly taken seriously after that battle."

Where We're From: Ascent of Los Angeles Underground Hip Hop is currently bachelor here and features Jurassic v, Dilated Peoples, Freestyle Fellowship, Hieroglyphics, The Vanquish Junkies, Planet Asia, Defari and more than.