The rapper Eminem struck out at President
Trump in a video that played at the BET Hip Hop Awards on Tuesday, accusing the
president of racism, hypocrisy, disrespect of military veterans and more in
almost five minutes of furious freestyle rap.
He also excoriated Mr. Trump for his responses
to the recent violence in Charlottesville, Va., the devastation in Puerto Rico
from Hurricane Maria and the mass shooting in Las Vegas.
The video, titled “The Storm,” was filmed in
Detroit as part of the BET Hip Hop Awards’ traditional cyphers, in which
rappers typically aim to deliver showy verses in a group setting. In his solo
appearance, Eminem, wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and baseball cap,
name-drops Colin Kaepernick (“This is for Colin/ball up a fist”), Barack Obama,
Hillary Clinton and Stephen K. Bannon. Throughout, he alludes to an array of
Mr. Trump’s political clashes, including a reference to Senator John McCain
(“Unless you’re a P.O.W. who’s tortured and battered/’cause to him you’re
zeroes/’cause he don’t like his war heroes captured.”)
Mr. Kaepernick expressed his support on Twitter
with a raised fist emoji.
Eminem also ripped into his fans who are Trump
supporters.
“And
any fan of mine/who’s a supporter of his/I’m drawing in the sand a line/you’re
either for or against/and if you can’t decide/who you like more and you’re
split/on who you should stand beside/I’ll do it for you with this,” he raps,
before giving the middle finger to the camera.
Eminem, who has never shied away from a feud,
has made Mr. Trump a target before. In August, during a performanceat the
Reading Festival in the United Kingdom, Eminem told the crowd that he “can’t
stand” the president before leading them in an obscene anti-Trump chant. Days
earlier, at a concert in Glasgow, the rapper wore a shirt reading “FACK TRUMP”
and made similar comments about the president before performing his song “White
America.” (“See the problem is/I speak to suburban kids/who otherwise would’ve
never knew these words exist.”)
But in an earlier era, the two men appeared
together amicably. Ahead of the 2004 presidential election, Mr. Trump made a
cameo in the Eminem concert special “The Shady National Convention,” which
aired on MTV. “I know a winner when I see one,” Mr. Trump said in an
endorsement of Eminem’s alter-ego, Slim Shady. “Donald Trump is telling you
right now Slim Shady is a winner. He’s got brains, he’s got guts and he’s got
Donald Trump’s vote.”
The rapper’s dense, blistering lyrics have
courted controversy in the past, with some accusing him of writing homophobic
and misogynistic verses.
And this is not the first time that Eminem has
tackled politics in his songs: He has also taken aim at Bill Clinton, Hillary
Clinton and George W. Bush. Last October, he released the freestyle track
“Campaign Speech,” in which he called Mr. Trump “a loose cannon who’s blunt
with his hand on the button.”
Eminem is thought to be gearing up for the
release this year of his eighth major-label album and first since “The Marshall
Mathers LP 2” in 2013. (A longtime producer for the rapper said earlier this
month that the new music was “done.”) In the last few years, he has popped up
for occasional guest verses and soundtrack songs — he is featured on Pink’s
“Revenge,” out Friday — but has largely remained in the shadows, away from
celebrity and social media.
“Sometimes I think that if I get comfortable
or set in my ways of doing something, maybe I should step back for a minute and
figure out how to mix it up a little bit,” he told The New York Times in 2015.
Other hip-hop artists and rappers have also targeted the
president in their lyrics and music videos. The California rapper YG released a
single last August called “FDT,” in which he repeatedly curses Mr. Trump’s
name. Kendrick Lamar lashed out at Mr. Trump in his tracks “The Heart Part 4”
and “XXX.” Snoop Dogg’s music video “Lavender,” in which the rapper aimed a toy
pistol at a clown resembling Mr. Trump, earned a rebuke and a call for “jail
time!” from the president himself in March.
Culled from NYTIMES.com
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