VEVO AND ROYCE DA 5’9 RELEASE PERFORMANCE VIDEOS FOR “THOU SHALL” AND “OVERCOMER” SESSION FILMED AS PART OF VEVO’S ORIGINAL CONTENT SERIES, CTRL

Vevo announces Royce da 5’9 as the next artist in their Ctrl series with a per­form­ance of “Thou Shall” and “Over­comer” premier­ing today. Vevo’s Ctrl series high­lights the work of hard-hit­ting, cut­ting-edge musi­cians mak­ing an impact in today’s music scene – both emer­ging and estab­lished. These artists demand atten­tion, and Vevo’s Ctrl shines a deserving spot­light. Shot in Vevo’s Brook­lyn stu­dio, Fred­die Gibbs’ per­form­ance fol­low ses­sions from Rick Ross, Com­mon, Raps­ody, Fat Joe, Jeezy, Jadakiss, Fabol­ous, A$AP Ferg and more.

Rap­per Royce da 5′9″ became known out­side his nat­ive Detroit first for his work with Eminem and Dr. Dre, then through unex­pec­ted pop suc­cess, pro­lif­ic solo out­put, and his roles in the groups Slaughter­house and PRhyme. His raw per­sona and tal­ent for intric­ate lyr­ic­al design were on dis­play in non­stop out­put that included fre­quent mix­tapes, col­lab­or­a­tions, and solo albums like his 2002 debut, Rock City.

His first major recor­ded appear­ance was on “Bad Meets Evil,” a track off The Slim Shady LP, Eminem’s multi-plat­in­um com­mer­cial break­through released in 1999. Later in the year, Royce and Eminem released “Nut­tin’ to Do” as Bad Meets Evil, and Royce deb­uted as a solo artist with the Alchem­ist-pro­duced “I’m the King.” Addi­tion­ally, Royce co-wrote “The Mes­sage,” the clos­ing track of Dr. Dre’s 2001. Dre had pre­vi­ously offered an After­math label deal to Royce, who briefly went with Tommy Boy pri­or to land­ing with Game Record­ings.

Early the next dec­ade, Royce scored the first in a string of chart­ing solo singles with “Boom,” a col­lab­or­a­tion with DJ Premi­er that began a long-term affil­i­ation. Rock City, his full-length debut, was released in 2002, but boot­leg­ging of its con­tents promp­ted the rap­per to decamp to Koch, where he issued Rock City (Ver­sion 2.0) and fol­lowed up in 2004 with Death Is Cer­tain. Among the tracks on which he appeared dur­ing the next couple years was on Joe Bud­den’s “Slaughter­house,” which led to group record­ings of the same name. Royce, Bud­den, Joell Ort­iz, and Crooked I released a self-titled album that deb­uted at num­ber 25 on the Bill­board 200. With­in a mat­ter of weeks, through anoth­er inde­pend­ent label deal, Royce’s fourth solo album, Street Hop, was on shelves.

Royce enjoyed even great­er com­mer­cial suc­cess dur­ing the 2010s, a peri­od dur­ing which his high crit­ic­al stature as a sharp lyr­i­cist like­wise escal­ated. In 2011, he and Eminem recon­vened for Hell: The Sequel. The EP topped the Bill­board 200 and was trailed shortly there­after by the release of solo album five, Suc­cess Is Cer­tain, a Top 30 hit itself. The year 2012 was espe­cially sig­ni­fic­ant for Royce, not only for the warm recep­tion to Slaughter­house­’s Wel­come To: Our House, but also for his sobri­ety date that Septem­ber. Alco­hol­ism had plagued his life for sev­er­al years, not­ably related on “Shake This,” and had led to a hand­ful of drunk­en driv­ing offenses, a pris­on sen­tence, and the deteri­or­a­tion of his fam­ily life.

Royce went through a pro­trac­ted peri­od of writer­’s block, but his career resumed in full force in 2014, when he appeared on bene­fact­or Eminem’s posse cut “Detroit vs. Every­body” and released his first album with DJ Premi­er as PRhyme. Anoth­er solo album, Lay­ers, was out by the end of 2016. PRhyme 2, along with sev­enth solo full-length Book of Ryan, mater­i­al­ized in 2018. He con­tin­ued his long his­tory of Eminem col­lab­or­a­tions with both the song “Cater­pil­lar” on Book of Ryan and a spot on Eminem’s 2018 sur­prise-released Kami­kaze album. Royce’s eighth 22-track album, The Allegory, includes cameos from West­side Gunn, YBN Cordae, Benny the Butcher, and many oth­ers.

“Thou Shall” and “Over­comer” are now stream­ing on all plat­forms. Keep up with exclus­ive con­tent from artists all over the world on YouTube.com/Vevo.

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

About Rishma Dhaliwal

Rishma Dhaliwal
Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless. Currently working in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media knowledge to I am Hip Hop and other projects by No Bounds.