Erick Sermon Reveals Details of Recent Heart Attack

When news broke Saturday that Erick Sermon, 42, one half of the legendary duo EPMD, had suffered a heart attack, hip-hop heads around the world feared the worst. It turns out they weren't the only ones who were a little freaked out.

"I scared myself, man," a recovering Sermon said today in an interview with SiriusXM radio host Sway Calloway. "This is crazy."

Details about the New York rapper and producer's condition were slow to emerge, and for much of the weekend, fans had little more to go on than a tweet from DJ Scratch, EPMD's onetime mixmaster. While Scratch implied that Sermon would be OK, the "Green Eyed Bandit" himself used Sway's show to elaborate on his recent health scare.

The trouble started last Wednesday (Nov. 9), when Sermon took a break from composing beats and took a seat on his sofa. He started experiencing sharp pains in his left side, and the following day, he went to the emergency room, evidently arriving just in the nick of time.

"As soon as I hit the door, my whole left side cramped up on me," he said. "The heart palpitations were going really fast, and I started getting the pains again."

It turns out Sermon's blood pressure was 200/190, and tests revealed he'd suffered a minor heart attack.

"I could have dropped right there," he told Sway.

As of Tuesday, Sermon was still in the hospital, but he said a test involving the insertion of a camera into his main thigh artery has revealed no blockages or major problems.

"They found nothing," he said.

Sermon said he's hoping to leave the hospital soon, and he urged listeners to be more mindful of their heart health. For his part, the 285-pound MC vows to drop about 30 pounds and take better care of himself.

"I don't want to be small, but I know I want to take off that weight," he said. "When you take it off, that helps a lot, too, but also you have to watch that [unhealthy] food. I know it sounds crazy, but that food is a killer."