Eminem has explained why he took a swipe at fellow US rapper Machine Gun Kelly on his most recent record.
Earlier this month, Eminem released the 13-track album Kamikaze, which featured several insults aimed at other artists.
On the track “Not Alike”, he raps: “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 commentin’ on my daughter Hailie.”
The lyric was seemingly in response to Kelly’s comments about Eminem’s daughter Hailie – in one tweet in 2012 Kelly called her “hot as f***”.
Kelly also subliminally attacked Eminem during a feature on Tech N9ne’s “No Reason (The Mosh Pit Song)” saying he’s “just rap and not God”, a reference to Eminem’s song “Rap God”.
In an interview with the rapper Sway, Eminem revealed that the reason for criticising Kelly was actually “a lot more petty” than his comments on Hailie.
“What he said about my daughter, I didn’t know about that,” he said. “Then, one day, I go through the wormhole of YouTube and see ‘Machine Gun Kelly talking about Eminem’s daughter’ or whatever. I’m like, ‘What the f***?’ I click on it.Then he starts doing a press run basically about Hailie. But the reason I dissed him is a lot more petty than that.
“First he said, ‘I’m the greatest rapper alive since my favourite rapper banned me from [Eminem’s radio station] Shade 45’. Like I’m trying to hinder his career. I don’t give a f*** about your career. You think I actually f***in’ think about you? You know how many f***ing rappers that are better than you? You’re not even in the f***ing conversation.”
He continued: “Now I’m in this f***ing weird thing, because I’m like, ‘I gotta answer this motherf***er’. And every time I do that, it makes that person—as ‘irrelevant’ as people say I am in hip-hop—I make them bigger by getting into this thing, where I’m like ‘I want to destroy him. But I also don’t want to make him bigger.’”
Eminem did not respond to Kelly’s recent track “Rap Devil”, released hours after Kamikaze was dropped onto the Internet, which featuring lyrics aimed at him.
“I think my Dad’s gone crazy, yeah Hailie you right / Dad’s always mad cooped up in the studio yelling at the mic,” he raps, adding: “Homie, we know that you’re the greatest rapper alive / F****** dweeb, all you do is read the dictionary and stay inside.”
Other artists who were called out on Eminem’s tenth record include Charlamagne Tha God, Joe Budden and Lil Yachty.
