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Eminem says homophobic slur on Kamikaze went “too far”

By | Published on Monday 17 September 2018

Eminem

Eminem has said that using a homophobic slur against Tyler, The Creator on new track ‘Fall’ went “too far”. He added that during its recording, he repeatedly felt that the word didn’t “feel right”. He still went ahead and used it though.

In the line in question, Eminem raps: “Tyler create nothing, I see why you called yourself a faggot, bitch”.

Speaking to rapper Sway for a series of interviews in which he explains the lyrics, and numerous disses, on new album ‘Kamikaze’, Eminem says: “I think the word that I called him on that song was one of the things where I felt like this might be too far. In my quest to hurt him, I realise that I was hurting a lot of other people by saying it”.

In the interview, Sway points out that, in the past, Eminem had been very supportive of Tyler’s collective Odd Future, taking them out on tour and hanging out with them. It seems that what changed was Tyler and Earl Sweatshirt saying some things about Eminem’s newer music not being that great. The last straw, apparently, was when Tyler tweeted that he didn’t like ‘Walk On Water’, Eminem’s collaboration with Beyonce for last album ‘Revival’.

“I was like, alright, I need to say something now, because this is fucking stupid”, says Eminem, explaining how the ‘Fall’ diss came about.

In retrospect though, he does feel that the language he used was a mistake. He goes on: “At the time, I was so mad. And in the midst of everything else that was going on on this album, it was one of the things that I kept going back to and going ‘I don’t feel right with this'”.

After discussing the issue with manager Paul Rosenberg, it was decided that the word should be censored on the recording, rather than rewriting the whole line. “I realise now people can hear what I’m saying anyways”, he says, having spotted that he didn’t actually cover his tracks very well.

Throughout all of these interviews, despite being someone who made his name throwing out criticism and acting like he didn’t care how anyone felt, Eminem comes across as someone with a particularly thin skin. Another feud relating to something fairly minor that featured on ‘Kamikaze’ is between him and Machine Gun Kelly.

Now someone who suffered collateral damage in that particular fight, Iggy Azalea, has also hit out at being included in an Eminem lyric, in which he says of Kelly: “You ain’t never made a list next to no Biggy, no Jay, next to Taylor Swift and that Iggy ho, you about to really blow”.

Azalea tweeted last week: “Diss songs shouldn’t be filled with celebrity name drops to pad out lazy bars. And that’s my unbiased opinion from a girl that watched this guy’s set and sung the words in the crowd. I’d think it regardless. [He’s] one of the greatest to do it, I’m NOT in dispute about that. But I do think the name dropping thing has become a crutch”.

Many pointed out that Eminem has always fired off at various celebs in his lyrics. Addressing this, Azalea said: “The earlier stuff was crazy, twisted and creative. This stuff feels more like picking names that fit easily into a rhyme scheme”.

Careful Iggy, he’ll be coming after you directly next. Maybe. It seems like he has quite a long list of people still to get through, though.



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