How Eminem’s “Rap God” Destroyed Your Life (Full Lyrics)

Full Lyrics Here, courtesy RapGenius.

praise White Jesus! finally! i’m elated to see that marshall mathers is using affirmative action in the way it was intended: to give white men the voice they had long been denied in American History. it espouses a sense of ultimate relief that things are right with the world, flowers can bloom again, and hip-hop does make sense.

 
just when we thought slim shady might be one xanax binge away from ever creating another dope lyrical display, he proves everyone wrong with the song “Rap God.” we were beginning to seriously question whether or not drugs could enhance the creative faculties of certain artists, and then plotting to have those substances conveniently appear in the Mathers Manor medicine cabinet. (although, if you heard The Eminem Show or Encore you’d know that only drugs could account for that kind of precipitous drop in quality from one phase to the next.)

i’ll confess that, with the millennium, the whole greatest-rapper-ever-is-this-white-dude-from-detroit bandwagon lost me based mostly on the over-saturation of eminem memorabilia, that “Lose Yourself” movie (shout-out to anthony mackie, i see you homey), and double-M deciding that his obsession with celebrity dust-ups was more important than his obsession with weaving together trump-tight bars. the kid who won me over with radio freestyles and rawkus tape appearances was now squaring off in battles against mariah carey and nick cannon over whatever THEE f*ck. he had placed himself in the hypothetical top ten of rappers, and then crossed the imaginary line into pop oblivion like pink, fred durst and so many other white-with-black-cred artists before and after him.

truthfully, the last time eminem gave the hip-hop audience that feeling of unmistakable ‘ohhhh snap’ was when he murdered jay on his own sh*t and, in so doing, became a criterion in nas’s argument for jay being wack somehow. it wasn’t even a real thing to get “murdered on your own sh*t” until em did that on “Renegade.” he created a way for artists to fall off instantly with a poorly considered guest appearance. since then, rappers have tip-toed around bringing in wordy powerhouses (see: drake/phonte) when they want to show listeners that they are the ones worth following, and to ignore the Lyrical Miracle who just stole the scene with a minute and forty-eight seconds of rhyming fury. rap got exponentially softer, and the number of eminem collabos were soon limited to members of slaughterhouse and maybe nas every once in a while. no one wanted to battle em (they still don’t), and no one even wanted to make it seem like they would instigate static with The White Shadow, lest they be exiled to the land of canibus in the 7th dimension, four systems removed from Earth’s sun.

but with that primacy, eminem lost his way and his will to win. he flagged as a musician, and became more rhythmically deficient, if that is even possible. he succumbed to his personal issues before emerging as a sanitized pop icon with a rap-rock hybrid sound that was a waste of his best talents, namely spitting that ooooooh-wee. all that changed last night, though. here are the reasons why.