Psycho

Album: Before I Self Destruct (2009)
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Songfacts®:

  • This track features 50's label mate Eminem. Fif paid tribute to his family member to MTV News. "It's always fun working with Em for me. He's in a space where he has the luxury of just being able to sit down. The rest of us... me, I do the actual footwork. Dre hasn't had an album out in seven years. Em - two years. Me - seven, eight months. They send me out to test the waters, and everyone else will jump in the tub. I stay a little more active. Em is by far the biggest rap artist, period. I'm the largest hip-hop touring artist. I travel more places than he travels to be in front of a live audience."
  • Among the pair's previous collaborations was "Patiently Waiting," from 50's debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin'. The G-Unit mastermind compared the two tracks: "Well, 'Patiently Waiting' I perform with Eminem. On ['Psycho'], off Before I Self Destruct., is 50 Cent and Slim Shady."
  • 50 told MTV News about the recording of this track: "He [Eminem] has an alter ego, and he has a comfort with doing things [that] are the craziest things possible. That's when the chainsaw comes out. He starts going nuts on you. I wanted him to be able to go to that space, so I worked the chorus and he heard the chorus and he's like, 'Yo, I like that.' I actually recorded ['Psycho'] in Las Vegas. Dre produced the track, we had a bunch of producers out there, and I went and laid the first verse. [Eminem] came and he heard it and he was like, 'Yo, I'm ready.' Wrote his verse, laid it. And then he started the next verse without me, I was like, 'Whoa, I really only wanted one verse. I was going to rap again on the third.' And then he just came in on that, so we went back and forth on the last piece. That song is crazy. That collaboration, we just got such a good energy around each other that we can be creative around each other."

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