A 90s kid, I was your typical rebellious teenager around the time legendary rap artist Eminem first popped on the scene, and I’m ashamed to admit this, but I was a “stan” for the guy. I cringe recalling this period of time, as most adults hitting mid-life do when they look back at the days of their youth. But I have extra reason to be embarrassed as I was not only a super fan of the angry blonde rapper’s extremely vulgar and violent music, but I basically tried to become the guy myself.
Yes, I dyed my hair, sported earrings, and even took up rapping. And I wasn’t half bad. Alas, I was a phony. I was pretending to be someone I wasn’t, adopting someone else’s pre-packaged persona instead of developing my own. It was cringe.
However, I found out there are a couple of things more cringe than a phony Eminem impersonator — for example, a middle-aged tech guru running for the Republican Party presidential nomination who gets on stage during a campaign event in Iowa and raps along to an Eminem song. But that’s exactly what Vivek Ramaswamy did, earning the ire of the rapper in the process.
There’s another thing more cringe than my days with blonde bristle on my head: it’s the guy who built his entire music career on being a rebel who stands for free speech and refuses to censor himself going out of his way — as an older, far less relevant force in pop culture — to be a cog in the very machine he once raged against.
This situation produces absolutely no winners. None. However, the biggest losers are the folks who attended this event in Iowa and were subjected to Ramaswamy’s lame attempt to look cool. In all honesty, if you were formerly thinking of supporting Vivek for the nomination, please reconsider. Please. For the sake of us all.
Related: Ramaswamy’s 15 Minutes Have Begun. Can He Sustain It?
According to Breitbart News, Ramaswamy performed Eminem’s biggest smash hit, “Lose Yourself.” The song came from the soundtrack to “8 Mile,” which was a movie where the rapper basically just played a fictional version of himself in a fictional biopic about his early days as a battle rapper. You know — those contests where rappers stand in front of each other and see who can come up with the most creative insults for one another? Ah, rap culture — truly enriching to the soul.
Young Vivek performs Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” at Iowa State Fair pic.twitter.com/pcKmvEBnlb
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) August 12, 2023
The Daily Mail reported that the famous rapper, who once claimed he would create a rap record about doing drugs and name it after his mother, got in touch with BMI, the company that holds the licensing to his tunes. He asked them to strike down the license Ramaswamy’s campaign has for using any of his songs in the future.
Why? Because he’s a Republican, of course! Never mind the fact that, once upon a time, Eminem was slammed repeatedly for writing anti-homosexual lyrics, murdering women in his songs, and doing all sorts of stuff. This led to his support for freedom of speech, a value held to be precious by conservatives but shredded by progressives. In fact, the principles the right hold to should fit well within Eminem’s paradigm as a rap artist “from the streets” — as many other artists in the genre, such as Ice Cube and Eminem’s own friend 50 Cent, have made clear.
But when you’re washed up and no longer relevant after once being crowned the king of hip hop, well, you’ll do whatever it takes to become relevant again, including becoming a left-wing anti-Trump shill.
Here’s more from the Daily Mail report:
In a letter dated August 23, a representative for BMI informed the campaign’s lawyer that the label had ‘received communications from Marshall B. Mathers, III, professionally known as Eminem, objecting to the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign’s use of Eminem’s musical compositions (the “Eminem Works”) and requesting that BMI remove all Eminem Works from the Agreement.’
The correspondence goes on to say that ‘this letter serves as notice that the Eminem Works are excluded from the Agreement effective immediately.’
‘BMI will consider any performance of the Eminem Works by the Vivek 2024 campaign from this date forward to be a material breach of the Agreement for which BMI reserves all rights and remedies with respect thereto,’ the letter read
Getting back to the near-criminal act of cringe committed by Ramaswamy, the candidate told Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds that “Lose Yourself” was his all-time favorite song. He said it’s, and I quote, “like, young and scrappy.”
Oof.
Reynolds, who is 64, replied, “I am really starting to understand my age. I’m going to have to look that up.”
One of Ramaswamy’s representatives gave a statement to the Daily Mail that read, “Vivek just got on the stage and cut loose. To the American people’s chagrin, we will have to leave the rapping to the real slim shady.”
No one is chagrined about being spared Ramaswamy’s horrendous rapping. In fact, despite Eminem proving he’s a snowflake, his revoking permission for the candidate to use his music on the campaign trail is a blessing in disguise.
Our ears are ever thankful.
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