As exemplified by a slew of artists in recent memory, it appears as though the new trend is to take things to radio to address current affairs and apparently that same concept feels as if it’s now becoming increasingly exclusive to rap beefs.
From Nicki Minaj taking to her Queen Radio show to comment on Cardi B to Joe Budden responding to Eminem on his podcast (don’t worry, Remy Ma called him out for this on REVOLT’s State of the Culture), to name a couple of examples, it’s a bit of a weird time to be a hip-hop fan, with many wishing that the beefs of yesteryear would make a comeback. You know, the kind where people traded shots on wax and kept it moving.
Anyhow, recently, Eminem found himself being targeted in a scathing-yet-thorough diss track (“Rap Devil” by Machine Gun Kelly) and instead of responding directly in the same medium, the Detroit rapper instead opened up about the subject during an in-depth sit-down with Sway.
“You know you go down a fucking wormhole of YouTube and whatever, right?” Eminem explains to the Shade45 host. “So I see, ‘Machine Gun Kelly talks about Eminem’s daughter’ or whatever, right? So I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’ I click on it. Then he starts doing a press run, basically, about Hailie. I’m like, ‘What the fuck? Yo, my man better chill, right?’ So, that’s not why I dissed him. The reason I dissed him is actually a lot more petty than that. Now I’m in this fuckin’ weird thing, because I’m like, ‘I gotta answer this motherfucker.’”
Apparently, this beef is about to get a lot more interesting (and “petty” per Eminem), but hopefully fans will be able to find out more soon (and not via an interview).
In addition to touching on Machine Gun Kelly and his future plans to address him directly, Eminem also talked about what led to the surprise release of Kamikaze.
“It’s not like I can’t take constructive criticism, but I feel like it kinda went beyond constructive criticism,” Em shared. “So I had to go back to it, and look, I have made albums that definitely, probably would not be at the top of my list, Encore, Relapse, which I believe Encore is a better album than Relapse…I always say that without Relapse, I wouldn’t have been able to make Recovery. If it wasn’t for Revival, I wouldn’t have been able to make [Kamikaze].”
Em also added that releasing an album without any advance notice was “the best thing to do, just because it doesn’t give people enough time to… when the_ Revival _tracklist came down the pipe, it was like overwhelming ‘this shit is going to be trash’. Nobody really wanted to be wrong about it. A lot of people had already formed their opinions.”
Take a look at the first installment of Eminem’s new interview, below.