As the light from a distant star comes with a delay and reflects the time passed, this interview, recorded before Lyrical Lemonade dropped a new Eminem track, shows us what Benzino thought, felt, and expressed before he heard a brutal diss aimed at him.
A former The Source editor visited the No Jumper podcast and has spent half of it talking about his historical beef with Eminem, how it hurt his business, and how Eminem is not that important to him. A new twist to the conversation was added by Dr. Umar’s comment that everybody was discussing at the time when this episode was recorded. Adam asked Benzino about Dr. Umar’s outburst on the Joe Budden podcast. He offered him basically the same question, just carefully paraphrased: Can the greatest rapper of all time be white? Before going into the series of “buts”, Benzino agreed with a statement:
Of course. I think now, as hip hop evolves, yes, he can be white. Because hip hop is evolving, and all races are putting effort into it. People are paying the dues, as I call it. As far as Dr. Umar, I see where he’s coming from. But then the same argument is that if Dr. Naismith invented basketball, then how can Michael Jordan be the best basketball player? The thing is that hip hop has been so personal to black people’s lives, other than just being music… I think that’s where the line gets blurred.
Then Benzino came up with an innovative take on Joe Budden’s relationship with Marshall:
With Joe Budden… It’s one thing being a fan, but then it’s another thing to be on somebody’s dick. I can understand a fan, but when you are on somebody’s dick — it’s a personal thing. Everybody can have their personal favourites. But, man, he doesn’t cheer like that for nobody else! The way he sticks for Eminem!.. I think Dr. Umar, like me, just gets tired of that shit. Like, bro, relax, okay, he’s good. I can understand that Dr. Umar gets frustrated as I do. Em can rap. I always say this. Eminem raps in a certain way. He puts out a certain type of music. It’s really his own lane of music. Because that’s not my lane, don’t get mad at me. I think Eminem fans take it so personally, “He’s the greatest!” Okay, he’s the greatest to you, that’s cool. To me, he’s not.
The ex-editor finished this conversation by implying that he and Eminem are equal as songwriters and expressed hope to meet Marshall in person one day and have a sage conversation about life and hip hop:
My thing was not about the music. I had my own personal issues on what I thought of hip hop. And that’s probably where I made the mistake by involving The Source. ’Cause The Source was supposed to be for the masses. Business-wise, it was wrong. You are not supposed to do that. That’s not good business. But I don’t listen to his music anyway. It’s not just him. There are black artists whose music I don’t listen to anyways. Our situation was polarised because of the beef, because of us going back and forth. But that’s what hip hop was anyways — big deal. I made a few songs. He made a few songs. So what? I’ve never even met Eminem. I would love one day. Before I go and before he goes, for us to sit down and just have a conversation about hip hop. That would be so epic to me because, with us, it’s bigger than hip hop. A lot of times it’d be Eminem fans, it don’t even be him, it’s his fans. Most of the shit I’ve said on the internet is because of his fans, not even him. ’Cause he doesn’t even speak on shit. He barely does.
No, Eminem does not. Until he does. On January 26, his new track “Doomsday Pt.2” was released on the Lrual Lemonade compilation album “All is Yellow”. The song is a merciless Benzino diss. Now, it would be difficult for Benzino to pretend that the beef is alive because of Eminem fans, who just respond to Benzino’s vile comments, to be fair here.
Eminem fans think that I’m racist because of our situation and that’s silly, I never been and never has been. I never said that Eminem wasn’t a great rapper. I think Eminem is a great rapper, but I don’t listen to that type of music.
Well, he certainly listened to Em’s latest song. And now he doesn’t say that Eminem is a good rapper. And instead of sitting down for a conversation, he wants to fight Marshall physically. Of course, Benzino wouldn’t be able to respond to Eminem on wax. Unless he collaborates with Melle Mel, who recently had an experience of dissing Em. It would be an epic joint.
Watch the video below:
