NASAAN, the son of the late Detroit rapper and Eminem BFF Proof, has paid tribute to his dad and his partner in rhyme in a new video by recreating one of their famous moments.
The clip for “Goated,” NASAAN’s track featuring another Em compatriot, Royce Da 5’9″, has a scene where as he is rapping about “my daddy,” the video cuts to a brief re-creation of a noted 1999 freestyle session Em and Proof conducted during an MTV interview.
Check the original below, followed by NASAAN’s recreation, which occurs at the 1:05 mark.
“Goated” is the first single from NASAAN’s debut full-length project. On the occasion of the video’s release, he had some thoughts about it, and his father, that he shared on his Facebook page.
“The release of this video got pushed back (because of other stuff), for its scheduling to be the day i lost my father 18 years ago,” he wrote. “this feels like such a pivotal make or break moment for me and my career mentally and all this says to me is that my father wanted to stand alongside me for this journey, win or lose.
“id like to think i’ve made him proud thus far, and will continue to try my best to do so. i put blood sweat and tears into making this video and he knows it.”
The relationship between Proof and Eminem was so close that the former’s 2006 killing sparked the worst period of Em’s drug addiction, as he recalled in a 2022 op-ed for XXL.
“[T]he thing happened with Proof and my addiction went through the fuckin’ roof,” he wrote. “I remember just after Proof died, I was in my house by myself, and I was just laying in bed and I couldn’t move and I just kept staring at the ceiling fan. And I just kept taking more pills. I literally couldn’t walk for two days when that happened and eventually my drug use fuckin’ skyrocketed.
“I had fuckin’ 10 drug dealers at one time that I’m getting my shit from. Seventy-five to 80 Valiums a night, which is a lot. I don’t know how the fuck I’m still here. I was numbing myself. I remember a few months after Proof had passed, I was about to use the bathroom, and all I remember was I just fell over.
“The next thing I remember was waking up with fucking tubes in me and shit, and I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t understand where I was and what the fuck happened.”
A few months after Proof died, Eminem wound up in the hospital following a drug binge that could’ve cost him his life.
“I was about to use the bathroom, and all I remember was I just fell over,” he recalled. “The next thing I remember was waking up with fucking tubes in me and shit, and I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t understand where I was and what the fuck happened.”
