Detroit Vs. Everybody

Album: Shady XV (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • This cut features Eminem and a posse of Detroit MCs paying tribute to their home city as well as speaking of its violent nature. Royce Da 5'9", Big Sean and Danny Brown all drop verses about the Motor City over Statik Selektah's beat before Slim Shady closes the track. Newcomer Dej Loaf croons the hook and Detroit stalwart Trick Trick contributes to the outro.
  • The song title references the Tommey Walker-designed Detroit vs. Everybody clothing line, which has been worn publicly by the Motor City rappers.
  • Dej Loaf had no idea the song was going to be a posse cut for Eminem when she recorded her part. Speaking with the Detroit Metro Times, Dej recalled how in the summer of 2014, Royce da 5'9" reached out to her with a question: "'I like what you do, but can you rap?"

    "He was like, 'I got this record,' and I wasn't sure if they were gonna make it," she said. "He said it would be [a track] called 'Detroit vs. Everybody.'"

    The newcomer agreed to be a part of the song but had no idea who else would be featured, besides Royce. "I didn't know it was gonna be Eminem," she said. "What would you do?…How would you feel?"

    It was only when Dej Loaf saw her name along with the other Detroit MCs next to the song title on the Shady XV track list that the young rapper/singer found out the company she was keeping.
  • The song is an anthem for Detroit. "It feels like we've always been an underdog," Eminem said during a Shade45 Radio interview. "Given that mentality, I think it inspired, and inspires people still to this day, to try to - rappers - to try to rap as well as they can."
  • Big Sean was visiting his grandmother when he got the call from Eminem to come to the studio. "He was a cool, cool ass dude and we just talked and vibed and listened to the beat for the song and just finished the song up," he recalled to MTV News. "I just approached the song, I didn't really think too hard, I just went in, I just did my thing. When you're in situations like that, you can't overthink it because when you think too hard you can't get nothing done. You just gotta focus and let it flow and that's what did."
  • Big Sean told Billboard magazine in 2017 that his bars on this song is his favorite ever featured verse. That was a fire one," he revealed. "I remember that I didn't have any time hardly to do that and I somehow knocked it out in an hour."

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