Royce Da 5’9 might be known as one of Detroit’s most formidable lyricists, but he’s also a mastermind when it comes to ghostwriting, song production, and music development. In a new interview discussing his role on Big L’s posthumous Harlem’s Finest: Return of the King album, Royce Da 5’9 revealed a medical condition that prevented him from recording music and talking at length.
Rolling Stone sat down with Mike “Heron” Herard, VP of A&R for Eminem’s Shady Records and Royce Da 5’9, discussing the development of Big L’s latest set, which was pieced together from older lyrics and freestyles over the years atop new production.
Nickel Nine, who has worked with Herard during his time with the Slaughterhouse supergroup consisting of himself, Joe Budden, Crooked I, and Joell Ortiz, shared his admiration for Big L’s ability and lauded the efforts of the estate to bring the vision to life.
Later in the interview, Royce, who last released a full-length project in 2020, The Allegory, has largely been inactive save for a compilation album released in 2022 highlighting artists who worked in his Heaven Studios camp. Part of that, Royce shared, was due to a little-known medical condition.
From Rolling Stone:
Royce revealed that for the past several years he’s been dealing with lingual dystonia, a neurological condition where, he says, “there’s some kind of interruption in the nerve firing off in my tongue,” causing spasms that hindered him from talking and recording music.
“My cranial nerves and my vagus nerve were all inflamed. I got a genetic condition called the COMT gene that processes dopamine slower than normal,” he explains. “And when I did a neurochemistry test, [I found out] the left hemisphere of my brain produces less dopamine than the right. So not only is it less dopamine, but it’s an imbalance as well. When your dopamine is low, that’s like Parkinson’s, ADHD… I had involuntary movements in my face and in my tongue. So they went on this long thing where they would put me on all these different kinds of medicines.” He says he went through several improper diagnoses, but he’s “almost through it,” and has started recording again. “I wish I was recording when we were doing this album,” he says.
The entire interview is stellar and gets into the weeds of how this massive undertaking to bring Big L’s vocals back to the masses took place. Check it out here.
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Photo: Getty
