“If I were you, suicide would be a way of life. If you were me, you would kill yourself. (Proof)

Before I start talking about the gifted Mc Proof from D12, I would like to thank and give credit to the webmaster of the following Derty Harry website for the rare information I found about Deshaun Holton aka Derty Harry aka Proof:

[http://angelfire.com/bxc3/dertyharry/main_bio.html]Deshaun Holton, also known as Proof, was born on October 2, 1975 in Detroit.
Although they didn’t attend the same high school, Eminem and Proof have been friends since 1988. They used to live on the same street in Detroit.
Proof used to go to Osbourne High School while Eminem attended Lincoln High School. Both friends used to skip high school to rap together: In fact, Eminem would skip Lincoln High and used to go to Proof’s school very often, because both friends wanted to rap together. This is how they put:

“I was skipping school, and he was skipping school too, handing out flyers for his concert he was having at Centerline. That had to be, like, ’88 or something.” (Proof)

Some underground (white) Detroit Mcs like Backstab the Kingpin are convinced of Proof’s racism. But Deshaun’s statements seem to prove otherwise.

CNow has asked Proof how he felt about Eminem’s skin color at the time they met:

CDNow: Did you wonder what this blond white kid was doing?

Proof: “You know, I went to Catholic school and I had a great, great friend of mine who happened to be Irish; We were best friends since sixth grade. so when i saw [Eminem] I was white, I didn’t even get off like that; when he rapped, he was high. What got us high and became great friends was that we both rhymed “first place” and “birthday,” and we’ve been close ever since. [laughs].”

Eminem and Proof have been true friends from the beginning. When Eminem got kicked out of his house, he would sleep over at Proof’s house.
It is well known that Proof is a great freestyler. He won the Source magazine freestyle competition in 1999. He’s a better freestyler than Marshall, but Marshall’s strength is in the way he handles his words in his lyrics. That’s exactly what Proof says about his complementary talent:

“We were both in awe of each other. The advantage I have over Em is freestyle; I’m the kind of person who freestyles with my head, right? The advantage he had over me was that he knew how to write in a complicated way; he knew how to put together a song and generate feelings. That’s why I rode under him, like, “Yo, show me the ropes, dude.”

The idea of ​​group D12 made up of talented MCs and sick aliases popped into Proof’s mind:

“I was in New York; I had a deal with Tommy Boy that unfortunately didn’t work out. But I came up with the idea that we could put together a team of great MCs, put a lot of Detroit in as far as having skilled MCs. took, so we’ll do aliases, like Eminem’s Slim Shady and Derty Harry, and we’ll call it Dirty Dozen, and at this point, to be honest with you, we thought The Dirty Dozen was a western movie; we didn’t know it was a movie from army [laughs].
That suits us, army instead of western, because we see ourselves more as gunslingers, lyrical slingers. So the idea was to make a pact where this team, the one that comes out first, comes back and takes the rest of the group.”

Proof has always trusted Eminem’s loyalty, even if some other members of the group may have been concerned:

“Not me; I’ve been there since day one, almost. I think the rest of the group may not have been there, but Proof has been by Eminem’s side this whole time. I play a leadership role in the group, where I speak with everybody else; Em is like the president, and I’m the general. I talk to the rest of the guys and line them up and show them the address. It’s also a family, so there’s going to be a lot of fighting and bickering, and some people might have felt like maybe it’s not how it should be. So, yeah, there were times when people felt weird about things. But now everybody thinks about it, and we were tripping over nothing.”

According to Proof, Eminem’s success was the best thing that could have happened to D12:

“Right. Some people look at us like, ‘You’re going to be Eminem’s group. You’re going to be in his shadow.” They don’t realize how positive and great it is to hear that; if you’re in the shadow of a guy who can sell almost 10 million records in the states alone, great. That’s not a downside. for us. But when you listen to the album, you hear the individuality of each person, how everyone stands up for themselves.”

It is so true that each D12 emcee has their own talent and ability to rap.

It is less known that Proof’s first stage name was “Maximum”. Proof has always been appreciated in Detroit for his rapping and freestyle qualities of him. He changed his nickname when people started calling him “Living Proof”, because in many people’s minds, Proof was the “living proof of living MCs in Detroit”.

Proof has collaborated and collaborates with numerous artists such as Dogmatic.
The first CD released by Proof was called “From Death” and was co-produced with Da Goon Squad.

He has released a CD called “Promatic” with Dogmatic and a six track solo EP called “The Search For Jerry Garcia”.
In addition to Eminem, Detroit has been hugely influential to Proof, who describes his hometown as “the kind of place where eye contact can get you killed” and also “a city where the sun never shines, potholes, snow and swindlers ready to steal everything you have.”