Grandmaster Melle Mel has had an illustrious career and left a mark on hip hop history. He doesn’t like what is happening now, and especially, he does not like Eminem.
Melle Mel fired shots at Em before and his main point of contempt is, unoriginally, Marshall’s race. One of Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five strongly believes that this is Shady’s main asset and he would have never achieved what he has achieved if he was white. Recently, Melle Mel talked about it again with unbridled passion on a new episode of The Art Of Dialogue series. The veteran rapper addressed the 50 Greatest Rappers of All Time list recently published in Billboard. Eminem was ranked No.5 on that list. And Melle Mel disagrees strongly with this position:
Obviously, he’s a capable rapper. If we’re talking about sales — he’s sold more than everybody. If we’re talking about rhymestyle — okay, he’s got a rhymestyle. But he is white! He is white! If Eminem was just another nigga like the rest of us, would he be top 5 on that list when a nigga can rhyme just as good as him is 35?! They had records and all that, he’s 35! The point is, if I was white I’d be greater than Elvis. Niggas be like, “Melle Mel is greater than Elvis! Melle Mel is the greatest white man that has ever lived. He’s part of the culture that changed the whole world. That’s a great-ass white man right there!” But I’m not white, I’m one of the niggas. So anybody could be as mad as they could feel if they don’t think that race plays a part in the equation f how great he is. I heard one of the dudes that’s down with him, Royce 5’9”, I heard he’s just as good as Eminem. Why ain’t he as big as Eminem? Because he’s black! How is it hard to figure out? Eminem gets the top spot because he’s white. Like I said, If I was white, they’d be comparing me to Elvis. They’d be like, “That Melle Mel is pretty as Elvis!” So it has something to do with it. Whether he would be higher or lower, but you can’t take it out of the equation. If he was a black rapper he wouldn’t even make a list. He wouldn’t make a list, probably. Busta [Rhymes] I would say is the number one rapper on overall, nobody’s gonna take Busta. Busta could rap just as good as Eminem. Eminem has his style, he got nice little tricky gimmicky style, the way he puts his words together. I’m not gonna say it’s unique because other people can do it. But to say he would even sell as many records if he was just another brother, it’s not true. It’s just not.
By the way, No.35 on the Billboard list is Future. Why of all possible candidates Melle Mel decided to compare him to Marshall is anybody’s guess. Also, bringing Royce as an example of how a rapper might be as good as another rapper but unappreciated because of the colour of his skin would have sounded so much stronger if Mel knew his name and didn’t call him 6’9. And if he listened to Royce and didn’t rely on hearsay. But in general, nothing has changed much in how he sees the world. For Mel, “white” is still an offensive word and negates all achievements in hip hop. Just like he wanted to fire a shot at Jay in 2017 by saying “Jay Z’s a white guy. Jay Z’s a white businessman. He’s a clown.”
What we know for sure is that regardless of what Marshall can feel about another personal attack, it won’t change his opinion about Melle Mel’s talent and his role in hip hop. Em knew perfectly well what Mel had said about him before and still gave him a shout out during his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech.
