Rap Devil Takes on Rap God!
Eminem released a surprise album on the 31st August and with it, a handful of disses. On his track “Not Alike,” the popular MC fired shots at Machine Gun Kelly in response to a tweet he posted about Eminem’s daughter, Hailie. MGK has now bitten back with an entire record, “Rap Devil.” This is a direct reference to Eminem’s single, “Rap God,” and MGK is confident that he can not only take him on but also defeat him: “F*** Rap God, I’m the Rap Devil.” He also makes various references to Eminem’s previous records, including: “I think my dad’s gone crazy,” yeah Hailie you right” (My Dad’s Gone Crazy 2002), “The real slim shady can’t stand up” (The Real Slim Shady 2000), “You should go back to recovery” (Recovery Album 2010), “I see momma’s spaghetti, all over your sweater” (Lose Yourself 2002).
In the track, MGK mocks Eminem for taking so long to come back at him for something he tweeted back in 2012. “Took you six years and a surprise album just to come with a diss.” Prior to all this, MGK had said in an interview with Hot97 that he had only called Hailie beautiful on Twitter and that it had been taken out of proportion. However, the tweet resurfaced clearly showing that MGK had written: “ok so i just saw a picture of Eminem’s daughter…and I have to say, she is hot as fuck, in the most respectful way possible cuz Em is King.” (@machinegunkelly, 9.15pm 7 May, 2012). On the new track, MGK alludes to Eminem having then banned the young rapper from his radio station, Shade 45, and getting Paul Rosenberg, manager of Interscope Records, to rid the records company of MGK. Both Eminem’s and MGK’s labels (Shady Records and Bad Boy Records) are associated with Interscope.
MGK takes things further and makes digs at things Eminem is known for, including the fact that Eminem read the dictionary to improve on his lyrics (“F***ing dweeb, all you do is read the dictionary and stay inside) and the movie 8 Mile (“We know you get nervous, Rabbit”). It seems that MGK aims to cut deep with most of his lyrics. He fires back with digs at Eminem’s history and personal life such as when he told the courts he paid too much for child support back in 2001 (“I just wanna feed my daughter, you stopped the money to support her”). Throughout the track, MGK also criticises Eminem for acting like a gangster when he’s not (“Tough talk from a rapper paying millions for security a year”) and suggests that he only got to where he was due to Dr. Dre and not his talent (“I got all my s*** without Dre producing me”).
Soon after the release of the record, MGK took to Twitter stating:
im standing up for not just myself, but my generation. im doing the same shit you did back in ur day. life is still real on my side, and i had to take time from the grind to defend myself from someone i called an idol. love, Rap Devil.
— 😈 (@machinegunkelly) September 3, 2018
There are very few who have started beef with Eminem in the past and when you look at what happened with Ja Rule and Mariah Carey, you understand that there’s a good reason why. The days of the outrageous Slim Shady are long gone and MGK doesn’t hesitate to mention this. His new song states that Eminem is “not getting better with time.” Although MGK posted a tweet stating that he was just standing up for himself, it begs the question as to whether he is only doing this because Eminem doesn’t seem to be a threat to him or because he really isn’t scared of the rapper and his alter ego. This song has a peculiarity about it, because most of the time during feuds, rappers don’t leave room for kindness in their disses. There are several moments in “Rap Devil” however, where MGK demonstrates a certain level of admiration towards Eminem.“Yeah I’ll acknowledge you’re the GOAT […] It’s a fast road when your idols become your rivals.” I imagine that Machine Gun Kelly had never been told that you should never meet your hero.
By Samuel Dawson
Images provided by Eminem
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