Eminem's Daughter Hailie Scott Encouraged Him to Collaborate with Singer Jessie Reyez
Eminem’s collaboration with singer Jessie Reyez on his latest album may not have occurred without the encouragement of his daughter.
When Eminem watched the 26-year-old singer perform on a late night show, he called his manager and told him he wanted to work with Reyez. However, a few months passed and, according to Reyez, “things just didn’t connect.” That’s when the Grammy-winning rapper’s daughter, Hailie Jade Scott, pushed things forward.
“She was like, ‘Yo, you need to link up with Jessie, because she’s not going to be available much anymore,’” the “Figures” singer told PEOPLE.
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Though the Canadian professed she doesn’t normally get nervous when she meets “legends” because she’s often composed whenever she works with others, she admits when she finally met Eminem, she was awestruck.
“When I met him, I hugged him, and you could audibly hear my exhale, because I was kind of nervous,” Reyez said. “Then we got to the studio and we go to work.”
The two songs Eminem and Reyez worked on together were “Nice Guy” and “Good Guy,” both of which appeared on his Kamikaze album, which hit shelves last summer.
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Reyez has come a long way from supporting herself by busking and working at a grocery store.
She recently released a new track called “Far Away,” a love song accompanied with a moving music video that depicts two lovers unable to be together as they are separated by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
“The inception of the song was literally just black and white of long-distance love. After the song was made, the line ‘the government wants us to break up,’ kept sticking out to me,” Reyez told PEOPLE of the political music video. “When we were making the video, I was really fortunate to work with Peter Huang, who’s one of my favorite directors, and I challenged him.”
She adds, “I was like, ‘Listen, I know this song can be considered just a black and white, long-distance love song, but I want the video to be viscerally connected to that line, so that we can play on both sides of the spectrum and be this love song but then juxtaposed with something that’s real life, that’s hurting a lot of people, that’s giving a lot of trauma to a lot of kids.’ That could have a better solution than what people are doing right now.”
