You know how know when a celebrity has been a celebrity too long? When they lose their edge and begin sounding like their predecessors who sounded like the big wigs in Hollywood before them. This is nothing new. But when it comes to rapper Eminem, he fools his current-day audience by throwing in an expletive into his rhymes here and there — so he can maintain said “edge” — while telling you how to live your lives. Eminem has been in the limelight for so long now that he can no longer relate to the average person, as evidenced by his latest “surprise” album.
The 47-year-old dropped a “surprise” album on Friday with a warm and cuddly title, “Music to Be Murdered By.”
Isn’t that adorable?
Of course, Eminem had a message in one of his songs that has grabbed the attention of news outlets around the world — we need to “change gun laws.” The video for the song “Darkness” is done from the perspective of the Las Vegas shooter who killed 58 people during a 2017 concert.
Eminem, also known by his real name Marshall Mathers, closed the video with “audio and video footage of news broadcasts from other recent mass shooting [sic] around the U.S. and an appeal to register to vote,” according to the Associated Press.
The AP also reported the following:
A link to the music video on Eminem’s website encourages viewers to contact or visit several gun violence prevention organizations, including Everytown for Gun Safety and Sandy Hook Promise.
Look, Eminem has always had controversial lyrics, but he has cancelled out most of the criticism by being an expert lyricist with great beats to accompany his words. However, Eminem has become establishment, and any hope of sounding like the rebel he once did is pretty much gone.
The only thing surprising about this new release is how much the message compares to any speech given by any celebrity at any awards show. People have always wanted to like Eminem, but in recent years he’s made it very difficult to do so.
It’s sad, and a little hypocritical, considering that Eminem plead guilty to a weapons charge stemming from a 2000 incident in which the rapper pistol whipped another man for allegedly kissing his then wife. He received two years probation.
Eminem got another year of probation in 2001 for pulling a 9mm semiautomatic firearm, which the rapper claimed at the time wasn’t loaded, on a fellow hip-hop artist during an argument.
In case you cared to watch the video, you can do so below:
H/T: Louder with Crowder