How Eminem & D12 Sold Their Souls For Fame - Theo's Story

I began to get deeply entrenched in the

growing Detroit hiphop scene, the scene

that brought you Eminem and D12 and Jay

Dilla. I was in that scene. I knew all

of those people. And it was really

through the confession of a late rapper

uh named Proof who I think uh risked his

life to tell his comrades in the Detroit

hip-hop community that these record

labels take you to a ritual to pray over

your master tape. Not long after that,

he was uh shot and killed on 8 mile

road. They were all invited to a meeting

in a big skyscraper. There is no 13 on

the keypad. The whole group got on the

elevator. Proof said when they got past

floor number 12, the manager stuck a key

in the keypad and turned it. That's the

floor where the devil does his business.

We have our own floor dedicated to our

Luciferian business. They get off on

this 13th floor. And as the doors open,

>> hi, welcome to Touching the Afterlife.

Let me tell you, you are in for a treat

today. We have brother Theo who came

right out of the hiphop Detroit scene.

We're going to be hearing many things

such as the ritual that's behind the

successful artist and what really

happens on the 13th floor.

First and foremost, I like to let people

know upfront um that I was not raised as

a Christian because I think a lot of

times

there's an assumption, especially among

young believers and non-believers who

have not found the Lord yet. There

there's this um stigma that they

put on a lot of folks, especially black

folks, that uh you was raised up in the

black church. You were inundated with

Jesus. You've been mind controlled and

brainwashed in the white man's religion

has you uh mindled and you don't know

what you're doing. So you're just

following something that really comes

from Horus from ancient Egypt or it's

something that comes from ancient Suma

or even older than that or you know that

there there's all of these ideas that I

used to believe and um it it's what made

it hard for me to submit to the idea of

the Bible or Jesus Christ or any of

that. Um, I came from a very, I guess

what you would call a progressively

liberal household, somewhat a black

militant household.

Um, where those types of ideas, although

my mother never pushed anything on me,

it was the lack of pushing something on

me that allowed for me to not have any

structure and to kind of go my own way

like Fleetwood Mack. And so I

sought after some sort of u religious

idea from the time I was a little boy.

When I was a little boy, I remember

asking her um because I pulled up on the

kitchen table to see what she was

cooking. I could smell this the food

cooking. I was about 5 years old and I

pulled up on the table and I looked and

I saw it was a can of red devil ham on

the on the kitchen table and I just

remember thinking as a little boy, wow,

is it a god? And it is it is it a devil?

And I let myself back down. I said,

"Mama," I said, "Is it a such thing as

God or the devil?" And I remember she

she was like kind of startled as she was

cooking. And she turned around and

looked at me and she said, "You know, I

don't know, but you should try to find

out for yourself."

And that kind of sent me on my journey.

So to make a long story less long, um

the era that I was a teenager in, which

is the time unfortunately when we get a

lot of our ideas and when we start to

think that we understand the world, but

the time that I was a teenager in I

graduated on time in 1991,

but it it was an era of hiphop that was

very dominant

um or a or a genre within the genre of

hip-hop, a subgenre of hip-hop that was

very very dominant called um conscious

rap today. They used to call it

knowledge rap. Some people called it pro

black rap, but it was

um knowledge rap is what folks generally

would call it, but it was um a movement

from out of New York primarily

um that had a lot to do with a former

cult leader, Dr. New York

who was very influential in Brooklyn at

the time and had a lot of influence over

a lot of the main MC's.

And so, you know, myself being a young

guy and being influenced by where pop

culture was taking me as a youngster,

um, I gravitated toward that. And of

course also it kind of fell in line with

the lack of spiritual discipline that I

had or with the um militant and black

history understanding that I did have.

And so I really gravitated toward that.

And it was around that time in my life I

believe that I made some sort of

conscious decision having some degree of

um regency over myself at that time. And

I guess you could say I was past the age

of accountability. I began to make a

free will choice that I wanted to be a

part of Islam or uh what my favorite

rappers were into. Rock him, Cool Gi

Rap, Big Daddy Kane, these were all guys

that were either members of the Nation

of Islam or members of an offshoot of

the Nation of Islam called the 5%

Nation. And so I began to um at at age

18, I proclaimed to my mother, I'm going

to go, ma, I'm I'm about to join the

Nation of Islam. And she just looked at

me, she said, "Okay."

And so, um, I started studying with the

Nation of Islam, going to mosque number

one, Detroit. It is actually the uh

place where Elijah Muhammad came and

claimed that he found a god in the form

of a European man named Far Muhammad and

he established the first Nation of Islam

temple in Detroit. And so that's where I

went. I went to mosque number one.

That's why it's called mosque number

one. Um and immediately in going there I

saw that the way things were portrayed

much like you find with religion in in

in general no matter what religion that

you name the people who are a part of it

usually portray

and display the very best parts of it.

And so um that's what I was hearing on

record was was I guess what you would

call the very best parts of it. But what

I saw in actual practical application

when I went there didn't match up and a

lot of things didn't make sense. And I

remember asking some questions that

couldn't get answered. And so I didn't

spend much time there. I went looking

for something deeper. And I think

through having some conversations with

other young people who had as much lack

of wisdom and um

pride as I did, you know, they who who

also, you know, had this inherent

antichrist spirit from listening to the

music and following the pop culture at

the time. Um, and I found out, well,

Nation of Islam, that's one form of

Islam or or one form of of uh

but if you really want to

be a Muslim, you need to deal with um

Sunni Muslims. That's that's what I was

told by a friend of mine at Rapt. And so

I went to the mosque with him and I just

began this journey. Um, again, you know,

I found fault with that, uh, not

understanding Arabic and feeling like,

okay, well, we're we're we're still like

strangers in a strange land in this

mosque full of people who are from the

Middle East. And so, I felt out of place

there. And I was always looking for this

place. I was always looking for God. Um,

and I I followed the breadcrumbs that

this world lays out for you if you come

from where I come from. Um, but in

general, you know, because the devil is

the prince of this world, he has

structured things a particular way where

if you don't raise up a child in the way

they shall go, they're going to go his

way. And there's a lot of different

versions of his way. And so the version

of his way that I ended up deeply

entrenched in because of my searching

was anything but Christ. Anything but

the Bible. The Bible is a book. You

know, mankind has has written and