Eminem‘s new album album The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) is here, and it finds the rap legend taking shots at Diddy and Ja Rule while also poking fun at Kanye West.
The project, a concept album that sees Em in battle with his alter ego Slim Shady, contains several comments about other music figures such as Lizzo and the countless white rappers he has inspired.
The self-proclaimed Rap God saves most of his lyrical darts for Diddy and his multiple sexual assault lawsuits.
On “Antichrist,” he references the CCTV footage of the Bad Boy boss brutally assaulting ex-girlfriend Cassie in 2016: “Next idiot ask me is gettin’ his ass beat worse than Diddy did/ But on the real, though/ She prolly ran out the room with his fuckin’ dildo/ He try to field goal punt her, she said to chill/ Now put it back in my ass and get the steel toe.”
The most brutal insult comes on the JID-assisted “Fuel” where Em raps: “I’m like a R-A-P-E-R/ Got so many S-As, S-As/ Wait, he didn’t just spell the word ‘rapper’ and leave out a P, did he?/ R.I.P., rest in peace Biggie/ And ‘Pac, both of y’all should be living/ But I ain’t tryna beef with him/ ‘Cause he might put a hit on me like Keefe D did him.”
The lyrics reference the claim made by Keefe D, the former gangmember who has been charged with 2Pac’s murder, that Puffy offered him $1 million to kill both ‘Pac and Suge Knight at the height of Bad Boy’s feud with Death Row Records in the mid ’90s.
On “Bad One,” Eminem references the rape allegations against Diddy and singer Aaron Hall: “This sounds like something that Puff would do/ At the party with Aaron Hall ’cause I just love to fuck with you.”
Later in the song, he spits: “The people still seem to think they want the old me ’til they get him/ Got ’em up in arms like monkey bars/ The fucking bomb with the Puffy on/ I’m blowing up Kid Cudi‘s car/ In front of his house where all his buddies are.”
In Cassie’s since-settled lawsuit against Diddy, she claimed that the mogul had Cudi’s car blown up for briefly dating the singer.
“Antichrist” also sees Em joking about Kanye West’s public outbursts while poking fun at his ex-wife Kim Kardashian’s sex tape with Ray J: “Say they wish that I wasn’t so angry/ They wanna see me goin’ off the deep end like Ye, aye/ Rather see me do like Kim Kardashian they say, yeah/ And find a way to get rid of all of this rage, aye [Ray J].”
“Bad One” features another Kanye reference, this time about his medication and mental health issues: “Brain is dead, space cadet/ Like when Ye forgets to take his meds.”
Old foe Ja Rule is also unable to escape the shots as Em raps on “Guilty Conscience 2,” the sequel to his and Dr. Dre‘s Slim Shady LP collaboration: “When I say, ‘Fuck midgets,’ I mean Ja Rule.”
Little people are a recurring theme across the album, with Em earlier rapping: “Swear to God, I see one of them little fuckers come at me/ I’ll pick it up by its legs and drop it and kick it.”
The line also appears to be a callback to when Em called Ja a “little mothafuckin’ midget” on his 2003 diss song “Hailie’s Revenge (Doe Rae Me).”
“Road Rage,” a song mostly about Slim Shady saying outrageous things about fat people, contains a dig at proudly plus-size singer Lizzo: “Ain’t never really truly over ’til Lizzo sings/ We should coddle fat people, yeah, here’s a concept, let’s celebrate onset/ Diabetes and instead of us dieting we can just have a pie-eating contest.”
“Bad One” also hears Eminem addressing his legacy and the horde of white rappers that have followed him: “Yeah, this whole sub-genre with all these corny white rappers, I’m not a fan of it/ It ain’t my fault but like sock puppets I had a hand in it.”
The namedrops aren’t all negative, though. The Death of Slim Shady also finds Eminem defending Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Lil Wayne, Kanye West and Joyner Lucas from critics.
“Now let’s travel inside the mind of a hater/ ‘Cause I don’t see no fans, all I see’s a bunch of complainers/ ‘Kendrick’s album was cool, but it didn’t have any bangers/ Wayne’s album or Ye’s, couldn’t tell you which one was lamer/ Joyner’s album was corny, Shady’s new shit is way worse/ Everything is either too tame or there’s too much anger/ I didn’t like the beat, so I hated ‘Might Delete Later”/ You nerdy pricks would find somethin’ wrong with ’36 Chambers,’” he raps on the opening song “Renaissance.”
