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Clever way to say that Kim’s other man not attractive anymore, since he’s a corpse now. Eminem is expressing a psychotic level of sexual jealousy with this comment. Imagining that Kim thought this other man was hot is part of what made him homicidal.

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Based on his tone, it seems that he felt that she hadn’t paid attention to what he was saying in their previous conflicts.

This line is directed towards 2 persons – Kim the character in the song and the real-life Kim. The first meaning is obvious – he is implying that Kim in the song hasn’t been listening to him.

The second meaning is that he is talking to the real Kim who is listening to the song and he is saying that when they were fighting she wasn’t listening but now she has no choice but to listen to him pour his heart out because she cannot interrupt him on the song.

The two Kims are essentially the same person but in literature the characters in a piece of work are viewed only in the context of the work and not like real life figures. If you think about it you can see the different scenarios I’m talking about:

  1. There is a scene in the house where Eminem is going nuts and yells at Kim that she’ll finally hear him out cause he’s about to kill her.

  2. Completely separate from the ‘domestic abuse’ scene, the author is turning to his wife (who would most likely listen to the song at some point) saying she’s gonna finally hear him out cause it’s a song and she can’t interrupt.

In the first scenario is a conversation between CHARACTERS, in the second, it’s a message from PERSON TO PERSON.

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The folktale Cinderella tells of a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to a remarkable fortune. The word “cinderella” has, by analogy, come to mean one whose attributes are unrecognized, or one who unexpectedly achieves recognition or success after a period of obscurity and neglect.

Therefore, Nas says that his acapella rhymes (lines without musical accompaniment) will help him get noticed as a rapper, and that will do for him what the slipper did for Cinderella: help attain wealth and status.

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Nas is showing just how ruthless he can be, saying he’ll assault a reverend with a machine pistol, and then get high enough from 11 L’s (or blunts) to reach heaven. I don’t think that God would allow him in after attacking a reverend, however.

Nas throws down a similar line in MC Serch’s “Back to the Grill”:

This is Nas, kid, you know how it runs
I’m waving automatic guns at nuns
Sticking up the preachers in the church, I’m a stone crook

Perhaps Nas' disdain for religion at this time in his life influenced this line. Instead of accepting their idea of heaven, he violently rejects it and finds his own personal heaven through getting high.

This line was originally used on “Nas Will Prevail”, the demo version of “It Ain’t Hard to Tell.” That song contains a variation of this line:

Holdin a pistol at a pastor, pullin the trigger faster
Tell ‘em I was sent by his Master

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The Wiz and Camelot Music are two evocatively-named and now-defunct record and electronics stores

Camelot Music -- Century III

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They charged him 25 000 dollars for his violence accusation. But since he’s got the paper, it ain’t enough to stop him.

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You love it when a rapper is coming from the real thing.

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He’s throwing away the pain-in-the-ass part of being a rapper : the fame.

He hates the fame but loves the game :

the paper product = money

giving lames the pain = giving his raps to “weak statue people”

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Sounds silly now, but remember this song was written while Eminem was still a nobody in hip hop. Thousands of other artists have written similar things while languishing as unknowns, and considering Eminem was white in a music considered exclusively black domain at the time, it probably seemed unlikely any of his songs would go gold.

Fast forward a few years to his most widely acclaimed song, “Lose Yourself,”

Reaching #1 on 24 charts worldwide, “Lose Yourself” became a worldwide success. It spent 12 weeks atop the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, the longest-running #1 of 2002. It topped the UK and Eurocharts for over a month, ranking in the top 10 in several year-end sales charts. It won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, two Grammy Awards, and three other Grammy nominations, the most awards won by a single rap song in one year. The song is ranked fourth in the 100 greatest songs of the past 25 years by VH1. It also ranked #93 on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Songs and first of the 50 best film soundtracks by the French television channel Virgin 17. The song was named the fourth best song of the decade by the Complex Magazine.
-Wikipedia

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Don’t forget the nature of what is good


Vergiss nicht den Ursprung des Guten.

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