For many R&B lovers, the late 2000s smash song Smack That by Akon and Eminem still has a captivating melody. Akon discussed his work with Dr. Dre and Eminem on an episode of The Bootleg Kev Podcast.

“It’s interesting because every record I ever put out, I actually produced, except Smack That. Eminem produced that record. Isn’t that crazy? He always had them small little sounds, it was something minute, but it felt like Eminem.”

Akon remembered that he didn’t anticipate Eminem to be as talented a producer. In Detroit, Akon asked Eminem about working together. Slim Shady was informed by the Lonely rapper that he wanted to enter his universe.

“He gave me a folder with, like, 30 tracks in there. And out of 30, I picked five. And I recorded all five, and the one that stood out was Smack That. I was like, ‘Bro, this is it’,” he told.

“Once he heard my concept to it, he was like, ‘Yo, I’m jumping on this one’. And I said, ‘You know what, if he jumps on this one, this will be a single’. And that’s the only one we ever had together, besides all those we did. But I still have them. I literally still have those records today. These are all the records that’s gonna drop in the future.”

Smack That, an Akon song released in 2006 for the album Konvicted, has had over 950 million views on YouTube and 570 million listens on Spotify. It is Akon’s most streamed song ever and the fifteenth most streamed single in Marshall’s discography.