Tha Dogg Pound’s Kurupt reminds Melle Mel about successful black rappers and brings the conversation back to Em’s skills and charisma.
A new video from Kurupt’s interview with The Art Of Dialogue is again focused on his reaction to Melle Mel’s comments about Eminem. The segment started with a host reminding Kurupt bout his own words that Eminem was a battle rapper first and foremost and only Dr. Dre turned him into a complete artist. Kurupt doesn’t argue with that but doesn’t see how it could be used against Marshall:
Eminem was serving MCs. That’s an MC to me! He paid his dues, serving people in the cold, freezing, just chopping people’s heads off. Bodies can’t be found cause the snow’s too high off the ground. He got so many bodies throughout Detroit that’s never been seen. There ain’t no way to judge this man because his team decided to send him on a different journey when he came out professionally. Through that journey he showed us his skills on the mic. And it’s all in the name of hip hop. That’s all that matters. It shows the diversity of hip hop. We are one culture but we are all nationalities, we are all races, we are everywhere.
Melle Mel, and Kurtis Blow, and Grandmaster Flash and all the five, and Kool Mo Dee with the Treacherous Three, all of them set the tone for hip hop to grew like a tree and then it grew branches, and branched out.
It’s people like Eminem that kept hip hop alive. That’s just real because of the diversity of it. He took it to a whole different plane and made a whole different race and generation feel that they can do it too. And we got good ones from all races, great ones.
I appreciate what Melle Mel has done. Without Melle Mel and all greats, there would be no us. So, I respect his opinion, but our generation, we don’t agree.
So, “Would Eminem just be another rapper if he was white?”, insists the host. Kurupt, who has already voiced his opinion on the matter doesn’t take the bait and suggests an open public conversation:
That’s a very good discussion for a good panel. I can’t say “yay” or “nay” to that because I don’t know why [Eminem]’s successful. I know he’s great on the mic and I know that people love him. Snoop [Dogg]’s black and he’s successful like Eminem. So I don’t know, when they like you they like you, if they don’t like you they don’t like you. That’s why our generation really can’t agree because Snoop did it and he’s black, Eminem did it and he’s white. I don’t know how to really take that. But everybody has their opinion.
Admittedly, the discussion has been going on for years with some people trying to discredit Marshall and more coming up to testify to his greatness. This recent cycle only shows more reputable artists giving more evidence to defend Em’s place in hip hop.
Watch the video below:
