“He painted an entire picture and he put together a whole f–king movie in 6 minutes.” – Jake Bass

Left image: Eminem and Jake Bass in 2000. Right image: Jake Bass in the studio in 2023.

In a new interview with Mcdontstop, composer, producer and music engineer Jake Bass, who is a son of legendary Jeff Bass from Bass Brothers, talked about the making process of Eminem’s “Kim” song from his 2000 classic album The Marshall Mathers LP.

“That’s the record my dad and uncle did and fun fact, that was the first song I ever learned how to play on piano. That song, that was done out in California. Same around the time they were doing all the Slim Shady stuff and starting to put together the next record before they all moved back home to Detroit. That was a record that Em had come in one day with really bad attitude and pissed off and everything.” – said Jake Bass.

Then he continued: “When he was working with my dad he would always come into the studio with a mood and obviously that mood was dark, angry, sad. My dad didn’t know it was going to be twisted at the same time at that moment but he knew I want something that’s f–king dark and scary so my dad would sit down at keyboard like this ‘no, try going darker, okay, like this, maybe deeper, okay, like this, no, maybe a piano,’ and then, my dad would just whip ideas out and he started playing that piano lick and that was it. Loop that, my uncle played drums on it which was f–king awesome. Everyone thinks it’s a sample and it’s not! Everyone thinks it’s f–king Led Zeppelin sample but it’s not. It’s all real. And Em did vocals in one take. That entire session was 30 minutes. They put that together quick. And it was like, OH MY GOD, he painted an entire picture and he put together a whole f–king movie in 6 minutes. They knew it was something special.

“Working with my dad and uncle at that time especially it had to be that way at that time because that’s a very personal, very vulnerable record. And he worked with my family for many many years before that so it was a comfortable setting to scream like that and play both characters. It was very much Slim Shady. That was something that he was able to be vulnerable with in the studio with my dad and uncle. And you have to be putting record like that and to produced a record like that, you have to tap in, you know.” Jake Bass added.