US rapper Eminem, real name Marshall Mathers, last week dropped an unexpected new album called Kamikaze, and the second track, Greatest, features a few lines dissing Die Antwoord.
He appears to tell the South African group, which made it big for a while in the US, to “deal with” the fact that he apparently couldn’t pronounce Yo-Landi Visser’s name properly.
At one point, she complained about it and Die Antwoord “dissed him”.
Eminem says in his new track that he was basically just trying to help them be more widely known in the States, and they clearly weren’t grateful enough about it.
“You dissed me and I was just trying to give you a shot. Now get the f**k out…” he raps at one point.
But now Die Antwoord has hit back, with Ninja addressing “bra” Em directly, with Yo-Landi looking on.
They told Eminem he was “so funny”, and corrected him on the fact the two are not dating.
Ninja advised Eminem that he used to rap better on drugs. They also made fun of Eminem allegedly using Botox and make-up. They rapped “E-M-I-N-E-M R-I-P,” and finished with “Voetsek! Jou ma se p**s man.”
According to a Reddit thread exploring the topic, one user attempted to explain the beef by saying that it started in December 2017 in an Eminem song called Untouchable, about race relations in the US.
It was written from the perspective of a racist white cop and a black citizen, and one of the lines says Eminem would ‘rather hear ’em say ‘Die N-word’ than Die Antwoord Ninja.
The user added: “Yo-Landi made a “response” video (I say response in quotations as she didn’t really respond to anything, only the mispronounciation of the name) and that was pretty much it, until today.”
Another user said: “Eminem, someone famous for not caring what people think, cares way too much about what people think.”
Apple Music has described the new album as “a brutal rebuttal” to those who had earlier expressed doubts about Eminem’s relevance.
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