EXCLUSIVE – Eminem is often considered one of the best MCs in Hip Hop history. With over 100 million albums sold and a discography that stretches back to the 1990s, Slim Shady has paid his dues and then some. But before 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 West 7 Mile as a teen.
Much like the 2002 film 8 Mile, Eminem found himself face to face with some vicious battle rappers ready 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 Sheet convention at the Red Lion Hotel in Los Angeles, Eminem met his match — Otherwize.

 

Eminem Took An L At 1997 Rap Olympics - Then Got Dr. Dre Deal | HipHopDX

The infamous face-off is part of the new documentary Where We’re From: Rise of LA Underground Hip Hop that was put together by Element co-founders DJ Breeze and DJ Bonds who were both instrumental in establishing the underground Hip Hop scene. In the clip, Otherwize and Eminem go head-to-head, with Em spouting off lines such as, “I got so many ways to diss you that I’m playful with you/I let a razor split you until they have to staple stitch you … 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 battle with Wize had to go extra rounds because these dudes were going at it. The battle had also a slight racial overtone to it. Obviously ’cause there were few white rappers at the time. So it definitely started to take on the feel of Black versus white. I will say this, the battle between those two guys was phenomenal. It had to go extra rounds because at one point it just seem like they were so evenly matched.

“Even though you could feel the crowd wanting Otherwize to win, you couldn’t deny Eminem’s skill set. But I do feel confidently 100 percent that Otherwize did win the battle. Did he blow them out of the water? No, he did not. But he did win.”

The Untold Truth Of Eminem

He adds, “It also adds a kind of lore to Otherwize’s name considering Eminem bought all the footage so nobody could see 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