Eminem - Rap God

The online reaction to this one has been interesting, something that hasn't been seen since "Control" earlier this year. Since that is just a demo, there's no place for me to discuss it so maybe I'll do it here.

Something that interests me with music is the ubiquity of anything that reaches a certain level of notoriety, at least among the music community. Once that level has been reached, you can be reasonably confident that anyone who has an inclination to music has heard it. Sometimes this can be funny to me (what does Artist X think about "Gangnam Style"?!)

With Eminem I find it interesting because he's just been around so long and what I get out of his character is one of apathy so I find it pretty neat that he seems to keep up with what's hip and happening.

I say this because it seems quite likely that he has heard "Control". He must have been pretty chuffed about it considering that he gave Kendrick a shout out not long later on "Berzerk" (while doing a nod to "Good Kid, m.A.A.d City", more recent music :) ).

I did read that this was recorded back in 2012 so while it couldn't have been written in response to "Control", it perhaps was released because of it. After all, Eminem does still get accoladed as one of the all time greats, but over the last 10 years now, he hasn't done much to back that up. It'd be quite easy for someone to have known his ubiquity for a long, long time, but at the same time being completely oblivious to what he accomplished during his heyday in the late '90s and early '00s. And it's clear that he's aware of the retractors as he directly calls them out. It's not an entirely persuasive argument at times, but for once he's found the right outlet to do it in.

Because after all, the entire song seems to be a middle finger to any of those retractors, showing that when he wants to, he can still keep up his old form. This in the way of his flow and rhyming scheme, which it can't be said enough; damn it's impressive in this song!

However they're not the only components to the song. While he gets that right, he falters in others. The beat is just a bit too cold for example. It works reasonably well with the tension in the verses, but is a tiny bit annoying in the chorus, and it's hard for it not to get tiring during the 6 minute duration of the song.

And of course, the part where Eminem falters most often especially in recent times, the lyrics. I've seen it be criticised for the dated references, but while they could be seen as a sign that yeah, Eminem is 40 now, the context he uses here is that he's been around for so long, so long that he can reference things that are so old that they're dated, but his career STILL pre-dates them (though if he wasn't proving that he can still deliver, that would backfire).

But my biggest problem is that there's one retraction that he's missed, and it's probably one of the biggest: The fact that he's frequently called out to be misogynistic and homophobic. He misses that one, and does a whole verse with 'gay little boy' repeated over and over again, and then later mentions 'faggots' multiple times. These are the two weak moments for me that take a lot of patience to sit through. If he'd found a way to take them out, I'd be looking at something that holds up to be as strong as it is fascinating, because it is fascinating, especially compared to the relatively mundane "Survival" & "The Monster" from this same album. But instead it remains what it is, slightly flawed and not reaching what it wants to hit. 4.1
Zuletzt editiert: 05.11.2013 05:37