Maybe now we can finally see why Benzino is still mad. He revealed his favourite Em’s tracks and “Nail In The Coffin” is one of them.
The Source ex-chief visited Math Hoffa’s podcast and dropped some shocking revelations hosts didn’t know how to react to.
Eminem got some cool songs I like, there is bunch of shit I don’t like, that’s every artist.
To the direct question what he actually likes, Benzino lists some unexpected title in the same breath as some very obvious numbers:
“Stan”, “Lose Yourself”… You know, I like “Nail In The Coffin”. I’m listening to “Nail In The Coffin”. I do. I liked it. I did. Beat was dope and he killed that.
Benzino had to talk over the explosion of laughter after he made this statement. He made several attempts to clarify his position and finally arrived to this one:
My thing is, he deserved, like anybody deserved, every piece of success he got. He earned it. It’s just…I always looked at hip hop. When I was at The Source, I was at the top. I didn’t have to answer nobody. So, I felt like my message would get across. I went to Hot’97, Angie [Martinez] and [Funkmaster] Flex turned on me. One week we’re spending mad money with Hot’97, and then Flex dropped the bomb on “Bang ta Dis”, my first solo. I thought I could have died that night! Look, I wasn’t going to be a solo artist, I knew I wasn’t the greatest rapper. I knew that. But also I knew how to make music. I made some great music! I knew how to do that! That’s why I had dope rappers with me.
From that the conversation moved to the importance of honesty in the genre and I seems like Benzino sees a fault line in hip hop between lyrical rap and street rap. Not the most obvious division, but okay. It works for Benzino because it helps him dismiss Eminem’s tracks that address him:
Eminem’s disses, I swear to God!…I’m keeping it real, I kept it real when I said I like “Nail In The Coffin”. None of his shit really affected me because while he was trying to discredit me as a street nigga, I know I’m street nigga. I’ve known the shit I’ve done. My niggas in the street know me. So that didn’t bother me, that part didn’t bother me at all. So that’s why I never looked at it like, “he ended your career’”or “he killed you”. If he came with Nas’s jint, “Ether”, oh, I would probably had to have move out of the country. If he had hit me with “Ether” — it’s a different story now. It’s my number one of all time, by the way, as a diss record. If he hit me with “Ether”, then it would have hurt. I’m a beat nigga, I like those type of beats on diss records. If Em had different beats on diss records against me, I think they could have way greater affect. But anything Em can do, people go like, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! He’s the greatest of them all!!!” His fans hate me!!!
Still,Benzino has way too many feelings about something that didn’t really affect him 20 years ago. Maybe, he better stop listening to this unremarkable track with not quite good beat? He really doesn’t have to like Eminem’s music. It would be only honest of him not to. He should just stop hurting himself and calm down.
Watch the video below:
