Sway's a.m. takeover has begun.
On Monday (July 18), the MTV News correspondent broadcast his first episode of "Sway in the Morning" on Sirius XM's Shade 45, and in addition to playing hip-hop's hottest tunes, he conducted interviews with Bun B, Lupe Fiasco, Diggy Simmons, Estelle and "Entourage" actor Jerry Ferrara; even Eminem called in to toast the new host.
"You played such a vital part in my career and such a big role in hip-hop, we're just happy to have you," Eminem, who owns Shade 45, said to Sway. But when Calloway asked for a freestyle, Em joked, "It might be dial tone."
Sway also unearthed an old interview that he conducted with Em, dating back to when the rapper first signed with Dr. Dre. 'When Em got signed, he came to our house in L.A., and he was just like, 'Man, I got this opportunity with Dre,' " Sway recalled of his and King Tech's earlier interactions with Em on their legendary on-air "Wake Up Show" in the late 1990s. "Then we had him come up on the radio show to make that announcement and he busted a freestyle, so we played that segment."
That wasn't all for the debut broadcast: Sway, who co-hosted with Houston on-air personality Devi Dev, played a portion of a never-before-aired interview with the late Tupac Shakur from the set of his "How Do U Want It" video. In the clip, 'Pac expresses his love for Oakland and downplays the East Coast/ West Coast rivalry of the mid-1990s. "I felt like whatever I am, the Bay Area had something to do with making. So if I'm bad, they had something to do with making me. If I'm good, then they had something to do with making me," 'Pac says before showing love to the various cities where he spent his formative years. "Between the East Coast, the Bay Area, L.A. and Baltimore, those places made me."
"All in all, it was good," Sway told us after the show wrapped on Monday. "We played a lot of hip-hop music and made a good relationship [with the listeners]. I'm going to try to tie in all of these worlds: MTV, Shade 45, pop, politics, culture, music, all of that. At the end of the day, that's the vision for the show."