Legendary member of Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Melle Mel has responded to Eminem’s recent jabs at him with some warning shots. The untitled diss record was uploaded to the Hip-Hop pioneer’s YouTube channel, Hip Hop Corner, on Tuesday (August 8).
In the track, “The Message” creator wastes no time addressing Eminem’s status in the rap game, delivering lines like, “The Top 5 is cap/ You the piss that’s on the floor in the elevator of rap.” He goes on to question why Eminem hasn’t responded to The Game, who has been dissing him for quite some time, and refers to the Detroit legend as Pee-Wee Herman, a comic fictional character created and portrayed by American comedian Paul Reubens.
“Why you ducking on The Game when you shit on my name?/ Why they put Pee-Wee Herman in the hall of fame?” he raps on the song, referencing Eminem’s 2022 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
He adds, “I would give you a pound, but I’d break your hand/ I got a lawyer so white, he will take your land/ Yo, check your man, come and look at your friend/ ‘Cause I think that Eminem is popping pills again!”
He goes on to call Eminem another “little kid” and implies that he could bring an end to the 8 Mile rapper’s career.
Listen to the track below.
The roots of this exchange between Melle Mel and Eminem can be traced back to a March interview with the Art Of Dialogue where Mel, born Melvin Glover boldly questioned Eminem’s ranking among top rappers. He raised the question of whether Eminem’s fame would be the same if he were Black, implying that his success is partially attributed to his whiteness.
“Obviously, he’s a capable rapper. If you was talking about sales, he sold more than everybody. If you talking about rhyme style – OK, he got a rhyme style. But he’s white! He’s white! If Eminem was just another n-gga like all the rest of us, would he be Top 5 on that list when a n-gga that can rhyme just as good as him is 35?” Melle Mel said on Billboard’s Top 50 Rappers of All Time list, which ranked Eminem at No. 5.
Eminem remained silent for a while but eventually responded to Melle Mel’s remarks through his verse on the single “Realest” by Ez Mill. In this verse, Eminem references Melle Mel directly, insinuating that the “White Lines” pioneer’s cognitive abilities have been impaired. He raps, “Shoutout to Furious Five and Grandmaster Flash, but boy / There’s someone who really is furious / Stay out his path, his wrath avoid / I’ll be the last to toy with a juice head whose brain is half destroyed, like a meteor hit it / Now with Melle Mel, he lost his ass to ‘roids.”
You think a beef is on? Or should Eminem let this one slide?
