So I can sit next to Carson Daly and Fred Durst
And hear 'em argue over who she gave head to first
Little bitch put me on blast on MTV
"Yeah, he's cute, but I think he's married to Kim, hee-hee" Eminem – The Real Slim Shady
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Putting a wild animal in a cage is just going to piss it off, so that when it’s finally released it will just want to kill anyone.
Wayne compares himself to these caged animals, and claims jail will have the same effect on him. And then once he gets let out he will back even stronger. Or at least that was the plan…
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Tired of JLB sayin', "Where hip-hop lives" (Where hip-hop lives) Eminem – If I Had
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WJLB (97.9 FM) is the biggest hip-hop radio station in Detroit, also featured in 8 Mile. They previously used the slogan “Where hip-hop lives” (now changed to “Detroit’s hip-hop and R&B”). He and other Detroit artists are sick of radio stations claiming that they support real hip-hop when they won’t give albums like Infinite any spins. He made a similar complaint about WJLB on “Low Down, Dirty” off of The Slim Shady EP.
Sayin' they wasn't feelin' me on "Nobody's As Ill As Me" Eminem – If I Had
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And not the other color, so police think
They have the authority to kill a minority N.W.A – Fuck tha Police
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Racial profiling and discrimination reached a fever-pitch in the late-80s after the emergence of crack in 1986. By Straight Out of Compton’s release in 1988, there were 762,718 yearly arrests for drug possession, nearly twice as many as the 400,000 in 1981.
This discrimination also manifested itself in 1986’s Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which made arrests for crack cocaine possession 100x worse than an arrest for powder cocaine, despite the two drugs being nearly identical on a molecular level; the only difference being “The only difference between the crack and powder forms of cocaine is the removal of hydrochloride”. This was detrimental for the African American community as it specifically targeted them because of the large percentage of crack cocaine users were African American, because they dealers sold it into Black communities, while powder cocaine was mostly used by higher class white people.
Or the two guns in my face during the stick up
Maybe 'cause a girl I thought I trusted
Was who set the whole shit up Drake – The Resistance
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That your idols become your rivals
You make friends with Mike
But got to A.I. him for your survival Drake – Thank Me Now
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When they recognize that you got what it takes to succeed Drake – Thank Me Now
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Many of the best high school basketball players have to choose between college and going straight to the NBA. It’s a much-debated issue, and was dramatized in Spike Lee’s film He Got Game. Examples of players who went “straight to the league” are LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard, and Tracy McGrady.
Drake feels like he can relate because he skipped college in favor of going directly into a career in entertainment, so he experienced fame and success before he could really develop emotionally.
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American rapper-turned-actor Will Smith began rapping at age 12, writing his lyrics in a notebook. His grandmother found the notebook and, after reading its contents, turned to the last page and wrote:
Smith took this message to heart and proceeded to never swear on record.
Then, at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards, Smith’s “Miami” won over Eminem’s “My Name Is” for Best Male Video, and said in his acceptance speech:
Em was not happy about it at all:
Eminem referenced Smith in the visuals for Dr. Dre’s 1999 single, “Forgot About Dre” and Smith referenced this specific diss on his 2005 track, “Mr. Niceguy”.
In 2013, Smith’s producing partner DJ Jazzy Jeff shared how he introduced Smith and Eminem in 1998. During their meeting, Jazz played Eminem’s twisted version of Smith’s “Just the Two of Us,” which prompted Smith to proclaim, “you’re either gonna be the biggest flop in hip-hop, or the biggest thing we’ve ever seen.” Jazz went on to share that neither party held any ill will post-VMAs, with Eminem confessing that he “was just sticking up for” his mentor, super producer Dr. Dre.
About two years prior Eminem featured on DJ Jazzy Jeff’s song “When To Stand Up” and he even mentions Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff in the song:
Back then, when Will Smith was still the Fresh Prince
And him and Jeff were still best friends
I guess then’s when I decided to cut class to rap full time
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Last I checked Eminem isn’t barred from the Oscars for assaulting another entertainer and GASP! cursing on live television
It’s also worth noting some of the underlying context in which Smith gave that acceptance speech. While he never mentioned Em specifically in his speech, the most obvious giveaway that Smith was taking a jab at Em was due to the fact that the other nominations for that category (Lenny Kravitz’s Fly Away and Ricky Martin’s Livin' La Vida Loca) were for musicians with commercial friendly content. If this nomination category pertained exclusively to hip hop and/or all the other nominees used profanity in their music but Smith, his speech would be a more obvious diss to hip hop in general and Smith knew he would get hate for that. However, Eminem’s “My Name Is” was the only other hip hop artist that was nominated in the Best Male Video category that year and Em was already a controversial artist, so he felt it would be more socially acceptable to boast about his squeaky clean lyrical content the way he did. To make matters worse, his nomination took second place, while Smith’s Miami took first, and since Smith specifically boasted about not using explicit language or imagery in his music right after all this was announced in his acceptance speech, it becomes quite clear that he was directing that part of his speech against Eminem, which is why he felt the need to fire back at Smith for that
It’s also inspired by Will Smith’s song “Freakin' It”, in which he says: