If you aren't a rap music fan or simply haven't been on the internet you've missed Eminem's latest project Kamikaze attacking today's new wave of rappers. The album called out many new age rappers for mumbling in their songs and their overwhelming amount of drug use and promotion of it. Machine Gun Kelly is one of these new age rappers that was attacked by Eminem but instead of keeping quiet Kelly decided to respond. Here is what has happened so far and why.
In the song 'Not Alike' Eminem goes on to say "I'm talkin' to you, but you already know who the f*** you are, Kelly I don't use sublims and sure as f*** don't sneak-diss but keep commenting on my daughter Hallie," a reference to the tweet Kelly made in 2012 about Eminem's daughter Hallie. Kelly tweeted saying "ok so I just saw a picture of Eminem's daughter... and I have to say, she is hot as fuck, in the most respectful way possible cuz Em is King" at this time Hallie is 16. That is something I personally don't think you should be saying about someone's daughter especially when you are 22 years old. Eminem feeling a similar way found it disrespectful of Kelly to say that and used someone of his influence to affect Kelly's career.
In Machine Gun Kelly's response to Eminem 'Rap Devil' we hear about the influence and setbacks he has had from his tweet. Kelly raps "Let's call Sway Ask why I can't go on Shade 45 because of you," pointing out that Eminem won't play Kelly on his radio station. This is one of the few things that Kelly mentions that really carries any weight on the track and even then it isn't too powerful. During my first listen I was taken back and thought wow Kelly did a great job on this track. However, after listening to the song a few more times I started to notice a lot of holes in the track. Many of the burns weren't too great once you realized that it's Eminem he is going at.
When Kelly raps "I know your ego is hurtin' Just knowin' that all your fans discovered me" which is definitely not true. Even if an eighth of Eminem's fanbase discovered Machine Gun Kelly his following would be a lot bigger then it currently is. This makes burns like this and the one about album sales lose their impact. Even now with the failure that revival was Eminem is still doing way better than Kelly. Kelly did have some lines that I enjoyed like "okay Oscar the Grouch, chill on the couch" and the play on words with popular songs of Eminem like Stan.
Those lines are nice but when you look at who is doing better in terms of numbers and popularity it makes this diss track just less powerful. It also did not help when Kelly was calling Eminem the greatest rapper alive just seemed weird to have a compliment in a diss track. Besides a few good disses what Kelly is saying about Eminem being old and not as good as he used to have already been said and he didn't really add anything new or say it in a creative way. This track also contains a lot of childish insults that simply make it worse "His beard is weird" is just not good enough when it's Eminem. For me, this track was amazing the first time I heard it but after listening to it after five or more times it just lost its punch.
At this point, I don't think Eminem should respond to Machine Gun Kelly as he is above him in the game and Kelly's diss track didn't really hurt Eminem. But as we all know Eminem ended up responding and destroying Kelly in Killshot. This song was superior in so many different ways. From lyrics to rhyme scheme, to the quality of disses, and the ripping apart of Rap Devil's lyrics. Eminem went in and delivered a much better track then Kelly. There were some unnecessary name drops and odd rhyme schemes in the song but the overall quality of the disses and responses to what Kelly was saying makes up for the problems in the song.
Eminem did his thing on this track and provided us all with a great song to listen to but all the credit can't go to Eminem. We have to thank Machine Gun Kelly for challenging Eminem so we could see this beef play out and see a glimpse at a younger Eminem. This battle is over, the Rap God has slain the Rap Devil in glorious fashion, winner Eminem.
