Hip hop has been a galvanizing political force since the ’80s, from Run-D.M.C. Good for them, but it would be such a powerful statement if a high-ranking black rapper censured Eminem for his homophobic words. There is never an ok time to say the word fa**ot If it contributes to hate and bigotry then it is hateful. I don’t care what year you were born in or what meaning it has to you. It’s never ok to say a word that is filled with hate. Wish they would have listened when we asked them to change it Tho, this is not the time to criticize Youth, it’s the time to listen. Thanks for listening to BRM Įminem is one of the best rappers of all time, there is no doubt. Asked them to change the track, wouldn’t do it. Was not in the studio for the Eminem track… came from a session with BJ Burton and Mike Will. (They obscured it, but not enough to make it completely inaudible.) Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds also gave Eminem a thumbs-down. Bon Iver’s lead singer Justin Vernon, who appears on the song, has called out Eminem and tweeted that he asked the producers to remove the word from the track. His first LGBTQ controversy was in 2000, over the lyrics to the song “Criminal,” on his third album, “The Marshall Mathers LP”: “My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge/That’ll stab you in the head whether you’re a f-g or les… Hate f-gs?/The answer’s yes.”Īlthough the media excoriated him for those homophobic lyrics - it took a 2001 Grammy collaboration with Elton John to quell the furor - the response from the hip-hop community then was as muted-to-non-existent as it is now.Ī few white music celebs have been vocal about their objection to the “Fall” slur. “Tyler create nothing/I can see why you call yourself a f-ggot, bitch,” Eminem, 45, raps on the song, in belated response to 27-year-old Tyler’s tweet from last year criticizing his Beyoncé collaboration “Walk on Water.” “It’s not just ’cause you lack attention/It’s because you worship D12’s balls /You’re sack-religious.”ĭear god this song is horrible sheesh how the fuckĮminem has been casually diminishing gay men in his raps for years.
Predictably, the LGBTQ community has been expressing most of the indignation over Eminem’s Tyler-bashing lyric on his current global hit “Fall.” The track appears on his 10th studio album “Kamikaze,” which sold 434,000 copies in the U.S. They need to hold each other accountable rather than enabling each other by making weak excuses or saying nothing. But if she isn’t homophobic, if Offset respects “gays” as much as Cardi B claims he does, then they should be as sensitive to LGBTQ feelings as black rappers expect white teenagers at their concerts to be respectful of theirs. Minaj has a significant gay following, and her dropping the S word doesn’t mean she has anything against them. On the next song, “Barbie Dreams,” she’s skewering Young Thug for wearing dresses and mocking the “gay lisp.” “They switchin’ like sissies now/You n-ggas is iffy now,” She raps two tracks in, on “Majesty,” which features - surprise! - Eminem.
Fast forward seven years, and Minaj is casually tossing off homophobic rhymes on her latest album “Queen” (presumably a reference to herself and not to gay men). In 2011, Nicki Minaj tried to rationalize Eminem’s use of the word “f-ggot” on her track “Roman’s Revenge” by saying he was speaking as a character he was playing. She isn’t the first female rapper to stand by a male rapper accused of homophobia. His wife Cardi B defended him in a Twitter Live video - “He literally told me he didn’t know that was a word for gays,” she said - and scolded his detractors for being offended rather than “educating.”Ĭan anyone who is fluent in English and whose job revolves around words seriously not know the connection between “gay” and “queer”? Still, fans and fellow rappers canonized him after his shooting death in June, overlooking his history of homophobia and violence against women.Įarlier this year, when Migos rapper Offset offended the LGBTQ community by rapping “I cannot vibe with queers” on YFN Lucci’s track “Boss Life,” he apologized and claimed to have meant “queer” not in the “gay” sense but in the “strange” or “odd” sense. The late rapper XXXTentacion once bragged about nearly beating a man to death in prison for looking at him a little too long while he was naked.