Black Or White, It’s The Same Ole’ Song
Words: Mario 2Tyme Hankton

Let me lay some light conversation on you.

In June of 1954 during a bleak audition, a fella named Elvis was free styling a song by a black musician named Arthur Drudup, which eventually earned Elvis a place in music history forever. Twenty years ago a punk rock band called The Young Aborigines who later signed with Rick Rubin (white Original Def Jam founder and original rock and rap fusion prophet), formed The Beastie Boys who released Paul’s Boutique to international critical acclaim. Everyone knows about the Missouri born white thrash rapper named Eminem who sold 75 million records worldwide and to the day, begs the question “Is he the best rapper alive?” Even among his well schooled, certainly established urban peers (and “pahtnas”), Marshall Mathers, a “white boy,” is readily considered the best lyricist in the industry.

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It’s on an poppin’ now! Eminem recently released a track aimed at Mariah Carey in response to the “Obsessed” video, where she spoofed a character meant to be the Detroit rapper. Many have speculated that the meaning of Carey’s track was aimed at Slim Shady as well, but the award winning singer has repeatedly denied that as the truth.

Entitled “The Warning,” Eminem begins by offering just that: “The only reason I dissed you in the first place is because you denied seeing me. Now I’m pissed off.”

He then goes on a rampage at some point reminding, “This is what the fuck I do” and pulls no punches when it comes to Carey’s husband Nick Cannon, with whom he also exchanged words earlier this summer.

You wanna hear something wick wack?/ I got the same exact tattoo that’s on Nick’s back…

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U mad?

After taking in VIBE’s issue that proclaimed Eminem as the greatest rapper alive, Irv Gotti felt the need to go against the grain. In a brief interview with MTV, the Murder Inc (The Inc?) impresario made it his business to dismiss the rapper’s street credibility. He does note Em’s ability to deliver a good rhyme, but allows he would not have made it as a rapper on the streets of NY.

“No disrespect, you’re a great lyricist, but I come from a school — I know they ‘battled’ in 8 Mile — but I come from where they battled on the streets with guns out,” the head of Murder Inc. said. “They would have put you under pressure. All that ‘off the top,’ they would have put you under pressure. I been to battles with X, Jay and Ja, that was some real shit. Homie, you wouldn’t been able to survive…”

Irv cements his point by drawing a parallel to the respective routes he and Jay Z have taken to rap glory.

“I look at the singles he put out. They’re all good, but they only work for him,” Irv said. “I say take Eminem, and let him say ‘Hard Knock Life.’ Still hot. Now let’s have Jay-Z say the ‘We Made You’ song. They would laugh him out the fucking building. It would be over.”

If you’ve been paying attention to the wonderful world of rap and bullshit, you know Nick Cannon let loose with a venomous (by his standards of course) open letter (more like a book), responding to a song he heard on his computer. The track, inspired by the wacky and most times offensive mind of Eminem, took aim at Cannon’s wife Mariah Carey (Cannon?) and well, all hell broke loose.

You had to respect Nick for standing on his square, calling out Slim Shady (he called him Slim Lamy, among other things… no wonder why he never sold any records), defending his woman’s honor and being an unadulterated man about it.

But then… he removed the post from his blog (like every blog on the web hadn’t already posted the damn thing) days later and the feud continued… kind of.

Now Nick wants to dead the beef and had a sit down with Entertainment Weekly to say so.

“I felt like I said what I had to say,” Cannon told EW. “I didn’t take [the post] down, like, ‘Oh, somebody instructed me to do it’ or anything like that. It was just one of those things… like, I said it.”

Cannon continued, pledging his love for his wife, love and all the things that come with finding the 1.

“I feel that my relationship with my wife is one of the best things — or the best thing — that’s ever happened to me, and it has nothing to do with celebrity or this industry. It’s all about, you know, just love and finding love and being happy and respecting the union that it is.

“I never even considered it as beef. It’s not beef. It’s just, Hey, I heard the record. I said what I had to say.”

He actually did a little more than that and by ‘beef standards, Cannon said he was “taking full action,” in essence, calling for an all out verbal brawl.

So Miss Marshall, I’m going to make you wish you never spoke my name and regret the ungodly things you said about my wife. This is going to be fun! It’s however you want it! Just remember, you did this to yourself! Your legacy has now been tainted from this day forth! You will now be known as the rapper who lost to Corny-ass Nick Cannon!!!

We’ll see where this goes…

Nick Cannon returned from is honeymoon and found a song by Eminem in his email box that pissed him off. So he wrote an open letter about it. We might break it down later, but the entire transcript is below. Pretty interesting read if you love Black women, which he says his wife Mariah – who Eminem talks down about on the track – is. He’s so mad he’s threatening to return to hip hop with another wack ass album (that’s not us… he calls himself wack.)

Well, well, well. Fresh off the plane with my wife from our second honeymoon on the beautiful secluded islands of the Maldives and what do I find in my email box? A mediocre (at best) Eminem record that sounds like it was written in 2001. At first I thought it was old material that had been dug up from when dude “fantasized” about having a pretend fling with Mariah. I was thinking to myself, “Hey that was before me so it is really none of my business, so I’m going to give him a pass.”

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