Lord Jamar returns to the big Eminem debate to show that his opinion has not changed one bit.
To be fair, it was not his intention. He thinks that since Eminem humbly accepts his guest status in the house of hip hop, it just proves him right, and that’s the end of the story. Math Hoffa decided to stir the dormant conflict to add spice to his conversation with Lord Jamar and Smoke DZA, who came to his “My Expert Opinion” podcast. Math started the discussion with a provocative “Why do you hate Eminem?”. The Black Nubian star only chuckled in response:
Why did I somehow feel like this was gonna go in that direction at some point?! Bro, first of all, according to his fans, every time I speak – I speak about him. Which we know is not factual. But I don’t even like to get in it no more. It was never about hating Eminem. It was just stating facts.
Hip-hop is Black music. We created this shit. As the creators, we decide who our GOATs are. That’s it. Not records sales, not record companies, not white people, not any other people other than Black people. Because we were the ones that started that shit right in the beginning. So when you got people coming out, “Oh, Eminem is GOAT, he sold more records….” We, real hip-hop motherfuckers don’t care about record sales. MC Hammer was selling mad records, Vanilla Ice was selling mad records. That is not the criteria of what makes you good. And at the end of the day, you are not going to hijack this shit from us and tell us who we fuck with.
Math kept returning to the Eminem topic as if to foil Lord Jamar’s point and find the space where both could co-exist. It proved to be difficult as the first thing the Black Nubian sees in Eminem is his race, and it is proved to be a dividing perspective.
When Smoke DZA was talking about how his lyricism is deeply rooted in the weed culture, Lord Jamar interrupted him with a remark:
You could have embraced everything that Eminem embraced And still never sold the way he sold. Because he’s white.
Math pointed out that Eminem still ole in opening the door for lyricists coming after him, regardless of race. Lord Jamar was not convinced, only partly accepting the argument. His counterpoint, however, had nothing to do with Em and his lyricism, only with public perception of his stage persona:
Yes, and no. A lot of people that like Eminem, some of them don’t even like rap. But they like Eminem. If you ask them, who’s your favourite rapper, they say Eminem. But if you ask them about rap, they don’t fuck rap. But they fuck with Eminem. I’m telling you, for white… for certain white people, he’s just their spokesman. He’s their representative. He’s Tarzan. He came up in the jungle and rose to the top, and he’s able to speak to the fucking animals.
Math, again, tried to draw Lord Jamar’s attention to the fact that Eminem does not speak to and for white people exclusively. The battle rapper said that when he heard Em for the first time, he had no idea about the colour of his skin, he just listened to his bars and appreciated his skills. The veteran rappers responded with his own recollection of the first encounter with the Slim Shady music:
The first time I heard him, I said, “Finally! A white boy who could really rap!” I was happy for him. But then I was like, “Uh oh, hang on”. I knew what they was gonna do! I said they were gonna fucking turn this motherfucker into the Elvis of hip hop. And that’s just what happened. I’m not blaming him for that! Everybody thinks what I’m talking about is directed to him. I’m talking about the people who put him on the pedestal. And when I said on homeboy’s show that white people are guests in the house of hip hop. He was like, “Even Eminem??!” I said, “Yes, him too”. ALL white people are guests in the house of hip hop that Black people built. And Eminem went on after all this going around in circles to finally come around and say, “Yeah, I agree. I am a guest in the house”. So what’s the fucking problem? Why are we even talking about that shit?
That’s a lot to unpack here. The level of projection is troubling, and while Lord Jamar visibly struggling to hold back from generalisations, it is still evident that the weird opinion of “certain white people” for some reason is important for him. More important than the Eminem legacy that he brought to the house that Lord Jamar guards so vigilantly.
Watch the video below:
