Singer and producer Dina Rae collaborated with Eminem and D12 on track 13 on every one of their early albums from “The Slim Shady LP” to “D12 World”. She has a lot of stories to tell about recording and touring with Marshall.
Dina sat down with Raaj Bundles of Side Show and revealed some shocking details about one of their most successful songs together. But she started from the very beginning, from their first encounter:
I met Em about nine months before he was introduced to the world. He was in Los Angeles, he had just signed to Dre, and a friend of mine who was working for Interscope at the time was driving him around. We bumped into each other in a parking lot at Jerry’s Deli, which used to be a famous deli nearby the Beverly Center. He asked my boy like, “Who is that?” And he was like, “Oh, that’s d Dina Rae, she sings all the hooks for the locals, blah blah blah”. And Em said, “Well, tell her to come to the studio the next day”. The next day I pulled up at the studio, and I recorded what became “come on everybody” on “The Slim Shady EP”, and that was in 1999. And then the track 13 kept coming after that.
Em is very strategic about how he wants things. He’s a mastermind, as everybody knows. He knew what he wanted me to sing, but he always gave me room in my ad-lib tracks, and he wanted my personality to come through. If you listen to any of the records I did with him, you’ll always hear my little oohs and ahs, and then my laugh and whatever happened in the booth in that moment. He loved catching those unique non-planned moments, you know, the real organic shit.
Out of all her collaborations with Eminem, “Superman” is perhaps the most famous and successful. It was meant to be a success as Em had written it for a superstar of that time, and she even had time to lay her vocals before the hell broke loose. Dina Rae had to step in to save the song:
I don’t know how much I can talk, how much can I really diss. Some politics… I don’t even want to go into that. Let’s just say this. I was called in, was flown to Detroit to do “Superman”. I did it at Em’s studio. The other three we did in Los Angeles, and then for “Superman”, I got flown in because, at that point, he’s got the means to do it. I’ll give you a little fun fact. A lot of people don’t know this, but Mariah [Carey] actually was the original vocal on “Superman”. Whatever happened happened. I think he was a little upset and he called me. He said, “Fuck it, call Dina”. Her vocal was actually the reference. I recorded there in the studio in his crib. That’s how “Superman” came about.
The song became her last number for Eminem, but she recorded “Bitch” for D12 later. Nevertheless, Dina holds Marshall in high regard after all these years:
I will always respect Em because he’s always been real straight up with me. He always tells me what it is. When he flew me to Detroit, he said, “Look, I can’t sign you, Dina. Me and Dre just went half on this kid named Fifty. But I’m gonna put you on this tour, and you’re gonna go get your own deal”. I was like, okay. I mean, I couldn’t be mad. He was very forthcoming with me, and I was grateful for the opportunity. Having the dance background and performance background, that was an amazing opportunity to be able to do an arena tour like that. That’s a once in a lifetime.
In a way, that’s exactly what happened. She met Proof, who had never seen her before, even though she had recorded vocals for D12’s “Pimp Like Me”. It turned out that Proof’s father, Mckinley Jackson, was Marvin Gaye’s musical director and friends with Dina’s godmother Sydney Davis, Gay’s backup singer. It sparked a new connection, and Proof effectively produced Dina’s album in Detroit, the album which made Motown sign the young singer.
The biggest bomb here is still Dina’s revelations about the original idea for “Superman” and the fact that the tape with Mariah’s vocals exists somewhere in Eminem’s vaults.
Watch the video below:
