Soul was the music made by and for black people. For most of the Sixties it was thoroughly divorced from white popular music, but by the end of the decade several artists with their roots firmly in both soul and R&B traditions had crossed over.
For Bobby and I to sing R&B and sound black was probably the stupidest thing we could do. White radio stations wouldn't play us because they thought we were black. Black stations wouldn't play us because they thought we were white. Any time you break ground, you go against the grain.
The race factor was just a minuscule part of what I was doing with Eminem. It was really about the music and how well we worked together.
The music field was the first to break down racial barriers, because in order to play together, you have to love the people you are playing with, and if you have any racial inhibitions, you wouldn't be able to do that.
In a country that was still racially segregated and prejudiced, music was among the first domains in which African-Americans thrived alongside whites.
But it all came, and for me, hip-hop has done more for racial divide and racial sort of bringing together than anything in the last 30 years. Seeing people like Eminem sounding like somebody like Jay-Z and just the racial aspects of it all.
There was segregated unions, which was a real problem for me because - especially as I was working in the recording scene, I had flack from the white union for hiring black musicians. I had flack from the black musician by hiring white musicians.
To me, racism is so played out and corny and stupid, especially in music, where you now have Nelly doing songs with Tim McGraw, on the hit single 'Over and Over.' Anyone who thinks about that just needs to get a life.
