The lead vocalist and songwriter of legendary Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five is consistently bitter about contemporary hip hop in general and Eminem in particular. Now he says that he can easily take Eminem out in the rap battle.
Melle Mel shared his passionate opinion in the interview with DJ Vlad. The host, who never misses the chance to talk about Em, reminded the veteran rapper about his earlier statement that he would beat Eminem in a battle. Mel was eager to confirm:
Easy. It would be the easiest thing I ever did. At the end of the day, mechanically, technically, he is a great rapper. But I’m the greatest. I know how to write it. When I put it down, it’s gonna stay down. It would be the easiest thing I ever did. And when people bring that up, just say you can’t beat Eminem. Just say that. I’ve been doing this all my life. It would be the easiest thing, and I don’t even write how I used to write but still, easy. This is my destiny. Everybody that’s out there rapping, y’all trying to do something that I did 40 years ago. Everybody out there gonna say, “No, that’s impossible, he can’t”. No, you can’t. […] My mechanics and my dynamics and my knowledge of what rap is all about – it supersedes anything that goes on out there.
Melle Mel is very dismissive about the whole state of affair in the current hip hop scene, stating that everybody called greatest rappers now are just those who make records. Their records are shit that would not withstand any competition back in the days when Melle Man was actively rapping. He laughs at the lists of “50 greatest MCs”, stating that there are not even 50 black men who have changed the world. When asked about at least four he can call the greatest, Melle Mel refuses to name anyone but himself, reminding that everything is subjective and as long as he is the first, he doesn’t care who you mention behind him. Vlad brought back Rakim’s name that Mel mentioned before in a positive context, and Mel took it, but only to come back to snap at Eminem again:
[Rakim]’s one of the rappers that could rap back when we was rapping. He definitely is, and he changed the game. We all had to start rapping different when we heard Rakim. I never had to rap different for nobody else. When I heard Eminem, I could rap the same. The game didn’t change. It wouldn’t stop nothing. That’s the greatness, see? They toss around greatness too much. In order to be great, you had to have changed something. You can call Eminem a great rapper. If he was so great, then why there ain’t 50 white rappers? Why ain’t nobody saying who’s top 50 white rappers? Cause he didn’t change nothing. I’m not saying he’s not a good rapper but […] where is the top 50 [white] rappers? Where is not!
As we can see, nothing has changed much since 2017, when Melle Mel described modern rap as garbage, called Jay-Z a white guy and a clown and had nothing to say about Eminem besides reminding of his race. It must be difficult to live in the past all the time, however great that past is.
Watch the video below:
