Eminem has sparked a media frenzy and created some public outrage. Earlier this week, Eminem released a six-minute cut off his “Marshall Mathers LP 2” titled “Rap God,” featuring multiple seemingly homophobic verses. “I attempt these lyrical acrobat stunts while I’m practicing that/I’ll still be able to break a motherf***in’ table/Over the back of a couple of faggots and crack it in half/Only realized it was ironic I was signed to Aftermath after the fact,” he raps in one verse. In another, he spits: “Little gay-looking boy/So gay I can barely say it with a straight face-looking boy/You witnessing massacre like you watching a church gathering taking place-looking boy/‘Oy vey, that boy’s gay,’ that’s all they say looking-boy/You take a thumbs up, pat on the back, the way you go from your label every day-looking boy.”
Eminem has long been criticized for his homophobic lyrics, dating back to his first “Marshall Mathers” LP in 2000. But the rapper has said multiple times that he is not, in fact, homophobic. “This scene I came up in. That word was thrown around so much, you know, faggot was like thrown around constantly, to each other, like in battling,” Eminem told Anderson Cooper in a 2010 interview, claiming that the offensive terms used were in reference to anybody, not just the LGBT community. “I don’t have any problem with nobody.” This week, several headlines have popped up on the Internet in criticism of Em’s latest single, including The Week (“Eminem’s ‘Rap God’ Is Incredibly Homophobic, and No One is Talking About It”), The Huffington Post (“Eminem’s ‘Rap God’ Is Full of Homophobic Slurs, But Praised By Critics”), Salon (“Eminem May Be Sober, But He’s Still Homophobic”), and Entertainment Weekly (“Eminem’s Homophobic ‘Rap God’ Lyrics: Still Getting Away With It?”), among others.
