Eminem couldn’t have picked a better time to reemerge.
After three years out of the spotlight, the Greatest Rapper of All Time (as he was voted in a recent bracket by followers of popular Twitter profile Hot Freestyle) returned with some of his sickest, most labrynthine, rhymes to date on the eight-minute, minimalist “Campaign Speech.”
In it, Em goes after George Zimmerman, the police, and most notably, Republican nominee Donald Trump.
“I'm about to dunk a bunch of Trump supporters underwater/
Snuck up on 'em in Ray Bans in a gray van with a spray tan…/
Consider me a dangerous man but you should be afraid of this dang candidate/ You say Trump don't kiss ass like a puppet/
‘Cause he runs his campaign with his own cash for the fundin'/
And that's what you wanted?/
A f*ckin' loose cannon who's blunt with his hand on the button/
Who doesn't have to answer to no one?/
Great idea!”
The most interesting thing about Em’s Trump diss is that in the last four lines, Shady sounds like he could be describing himself. This is a rapper who has made a career out of telling it like it is; who has insulted celebrities for no reason other than that their name fits in a rhyme scheme; for being blunt and for not answering to anyone.
The Internet lit up with articles on the diss after “Campaign Speech” was released, many of them with titles like this one from CNN: “Eminem blasts Donald Trump as ‘loose cannon’ in new song.” The last time Eminem used the phrase “loose cannon” on a track was in 2010’s “Cold Wind Blows.” He was describing himself.
The similarities don’t end there.
Four days after Marshall Mathers released his sprawling screed tackling anything and everything in pop culture, the New York Times released a spread covering two full pages listing every insult the Republican nominee has leveled on his Twitter account since he announced his candidacy.
Just like Eminem calls out celebrities in his self-consciously immature first single on nearly every album (see: “My Name Is,” “The Real Slim Shady,” “Without Me,” “Just Lose It,” “We Made You,” and “Rap God”), Donald Trump, apparently without similar self-awareness, insults anyone and everyone.
“Robert Pattinson should not take back Kristen Stewart. She cheated on him like a dog & will do it again--just watch. He can do much better!” the billionaire businessman tweeted in 2012 (one of many tweets directed at the couple’s relationship. Trump even went as far as offering to hook Pattinson up with his choice of Miss Universe contestants).
Paul Ryan “doesn’t know how to win,” Hillary Clinton is “crooked,” Bill Clinton is the “WORST abuser of women in U.S. political history,” Jeb Bush is “low energy,” Ted Cruz is “lyin’ Ted,” Saturday Night Live needs to be cancelled, and Russell Moore, a prominent Evangelical leader who has been Never Trump since the beginning, is “A nasty guy with no heart!”
They both have bragged about assaulting women. Eminem opens the 2009 50 Cent and Dr. Dre collaboration, “Crack a Bottle,” introducing himself like this: “In this corner, weighing in at 175 pounds, with a record of 17 rapes, 400 assaults, and four murders, the undisputed most diabolical villain in the world: Slim Shady!” He brags about rape in such a shocking way on Dr. Dre’s “Medicine Man” that it’s edited out, even in the EXPLICIT version. “Grab ‘em by the p*ssy” would be par for the course on an Eminem track.
But, let’s be clear: Eminem says these things as part of a persona. David Bowie had Ziggy Stardust, Beyonce has Sasha Fierce, and Eminem has Slim Shady. Eminem was part of the Detroit-based hip-hop group D-12 (for Dirty Dozen) so named because the posse’s six rappers each had their own twisted alter ego. Eminem has been tongue-in-cheek since he burst onto the MTV scene in 1999, rhyming, “My brain’s dead weight/ I’m tryin’ to get my head straight/ But I can’t figure out which Spice Girl I wanna impregnate” on his debut single, “My Name Is.”
This is shtick. And Donald Trump has stolen his shtick.
The big difference is that the people who maligned Eminem in the early 2000s for corrupting the minds of America’s youth, are loudly and proudly on the Trump Train.
Focus on the Family’s James Dobson wrote, following the release and commercial success of 2000’s The Marshall Mathers LP, “The music industry takes the prize for producing outrageous and dangerous material for kids and promoting a culture of sin. Most parents are unaware of the extent of filth and violence being marketed to their children. A CD released by rapper Eminem, for example, featured lyrics glorifying sex, drug use, and the murder of a pregnant woman. The F-word and other obscene terms were uttered repeatedly. This CD premiered at number one on the charts and sold nearly three million copies in its first month.” This was the consensus among the Religious Right. Eminem was a bad and dangerous man and needed to be stopped. His language was filthy and the behavior he endorsed was deplorable.
But, when the Republican nominee endorses the same behavior and promotes a culture of sin the Religious Right explains it away. “He’s a baby Christian,” Dobson said of Trump.
The message that Dobson, Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr., and other Evangelical Trump supporters have sent this election is that sin is only sin if the sinner can’t promise you political power. Sin is only sin if it's committed by the other party's candidate.
If only Eminem were running for office.
