Royce da 5'9"

Early career and Bad Meets Evil

Royce da 5'9" is the stage name of Ryan Daniel Montgomery, born July 5, 1977, in Detroit, Michigan. Active since 1995, he formed the duo Bad Meets Evil with Eminem in 1998 and gained wider notice through their 1999 track “Bad Meets Evil.” His DJ Premier-produced single “Boom” followed in December 1999. He turned down an offer from Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment in order to keep his manager, and signed with Columbia Records.

Rock City and Death Is Certain

Disagreements with Columbia over radio-friendly singles delayed his debut, and the label dropped him in December 2001. After an unauthorized bootleg circulated in early 2002, he re-recorded most of the material and released Rock City (Version 2.0) through Game Recordings and Koch Records in November 2002. Death Is Certain followed on Koch in February 2004, produced mainly by Carlos “6 July” Broady and led by the DJ Premier-produced single “Hip Hop.” It reached No. 161 on the Billboard 200 and No. 5 on Independent Albums. Independent’s Day (2005) and Street Hop (2009) came next.

Slaughterhouse, Bad Meets Evil and PRhyme

In 2008 Royce formed Slaughterhouse with Joe Budden, Joell Ortiz and KXNG Crooked; the group was active until 2018. In 2011 he and Eminem returned as Bad Meets Evil with the EP Hell: The Sequel, which debuted atop the Billboard 200; its single “Lighters,” with Bruno Mars, peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2014 he formed PRhyme with DJ Premier.

Later solo work

His later solo albums include Success Is Certain (2011), Layers (2016) and Book of Ryan (2018). The Allegory, released through eOne Music in February 2020, was his first album produced entirely by himself. It peaked at No. 58 on the Billboard 200 and was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, losing to Nas’s King’s Disease.