Joe Budden Reveals How Eminem Helped Save His Life

Slaughterhouse's Joe Budden recently discussed his battles with sobriety and revealed how Shady Records boss Eminem extended a hand in his road to recovery.

Although Joey would not delve into the specifics, he did credit Em as one of the few people he spoke to regarding his health problems.

“Those conversations are confidential between us, but we definitely spoke about it,” the “Pump It Up” MC said when he appeared on Wednesday’s (April 3) “RapFix Live.” “He shared some of his experiences; I’ve shared some of mine. It’s a real unique situation, because we’re signed there and he’s one of the greatest rappers ever in my opinion, but as just a person, it’s really like family.” (MTV)

He also briefly discussed what damaging effects popping the drug known as “Molly” had on his body.

“It helped with sex. People should’ve been doing that without molly,” Budden said of the supposed pros of the drug. “For me, it really was just all bad. I never had time to have sex. It was doing too much to my brain. Once it starts doing that, a bad string of events start to happen with life. Life started to become unmanageable at that point, so it was time.” (MTV)

A couple years ago, former Shady Records artist Cashis talked about Em extending a hand to help out with his own drug addiction problem.

“First time I met Em, in the studio in Detroit, I had a vial of like 80 Valiums and I popped em all in like a day and a half. He was like “D*mn, dog you might wanna get some help. Let me know, I can help you out, discretely,’ ” the rapper explained. “I was like ‘Nah man. Where I’m from, what would I look like?’ I got off it my own, and later on, I found out — like the rest of the world — Em was getting off of it. During that time, I just quit talking to everybody dog. I didn’t talk to no friends, family.” (Baller Status)

Back in 2010, Slim Shady said his past drug woes had a damaging impact on his music-making abilities.

“I had to learn to write and rap again, and I had to do it sober and 100 percent clean. That didn’t feel good at first…I mean it in the literal sense. I actually had to learn how to say my lyrics again — how to phrase them, make them flow, how to use force so they sounded like I meant them. Rapping wasn’t like riding a bike. It was [as much] physical as mental. I was relearning basic motor skills. I couldn’t control my hand shakes. I’d get in the [recording] booth and tried to rap, and none of it was clever, none was witty and I wasn’t saying it right…It was four or five months after I’d been clean when I started to get a glimmer of my writing skills back. I don’t remember what song I was working on specifically, but I do remember getting feeling back in the music. I realized I wanted to do this again.” (New York Post)