Eminem’s skin color has allowed him to get away with “a lot of things” in his career, according to Kurupt — including dissing his musical peers.
Tha Dogg Pound rapper sat down for an interview with The Art of Dialogue, where he was asked about Melle Mel’s recent controversial comments about Slim Shady, who he said is only considered a top rapper because he’s white.
The Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five pioneer’s remarks came after Em was ranked No. 5 on Billboard’s Top 50 Greatest Rappers of All Time list, ahead of The Notorious B.I.G., Lil Wayne, André 3000 and others.
Kurupt initially responded by disagreeing with Melle Mel, arguing Eminem’s skills on the mic are undisputed, regardless of his race.
“That’s his opinion. That’s not our opinion,” he said. “The way Dr. Dre took Eminem subject matter-wise is one thing; the way Eminem rocked — he’s a battle rapper, so he’s Hip Hop, no matter what color he is. Dr. Dre took him in this way, so that has no bearing on his skill. His skills are renowned.”
He added: “But that’s Melle Mel’s feel on it. Melle Mel is an icon of Hip Hop … Remember, he’s the original Hip Hop so Melle Mel speaks from that standpoint. For my generation, hey, Eminem is our monster. His color is irrelevant.”
However, the West Coast rap veteran — who Eminem named as one of his favorite MCs on 2002’s “‘Till I Collapse” — later acknowledged that Melle Mel was right about one thing regarding the self-proclaimed Rap God’s white privilege.
“He does have a point, Eminem being white,” he added. “He might have got away with a lot of things, like him talking about all these different artists and shit, you know what I’m saying? And not having no backlash to where he’s blackballed.
“But not from his skill. [Being] white had nothing to do with his skills. But he might have got away with a lot of things. Shit, we got away with a lot of things once we became successful! Once you’re successful, you can do whatever you fucking want, and the game accepts it because they make money off of what you’re doing, so they give you that pass.”
Eminem has ruffled plenty of feathers throughout his career, both within and beyond Hip Hop. His initial rise to stardom in the late ’90s saw him poke fun at pop culture figures like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera — most notably in his music video for “The Real Slim Shady.”
More bitter feuds followed in the 2000s, including with Ja Rule, Everlast, Canibus, Mariah Carey, Insane Clown Posse, Benzino and The Source magazine. His lauded lyrics have also been laced with shots at sitting presidents, the LGBTQ+ community and his mother Debbie Mathers and ex-wife Kim Scott.
Eminem has never shied away from acknowledging the advantage that his skin color has afforded him, though. “Let’s do the math: If I was black, I would’ve sold half/ I ain’t have to graduate from Lincoln High School to know that,” he famously rapped on 2002’s “White America.”
His verse continued: “When I was underground, no one gave a fuck I was white/ No labels wanted to sign me, almost gave up, I was like/ ‘Fuck it’ until I met Dre, the only one to look past/ Gave me a chance and I lit a fire up under his ass/ Helped him get back to the top, every fan Black that I got/ Was probably his in exchange for every white fan that he’s got/ Like, damn, we just swapped, sittin’ back lookin’ at shit, wow/ I’m like, ‘My skin is startin’ to work to my benefit now’?”
In a revealing cover story for XXL last year, Eminem admitted that he was “hurt” by the white rapper criticism he faced early in his career.
“When things started happening for me, I was getting a lot of heat, being a white rapper, and XXL wrote something about that,” he wrote. “I remember going to one of those newsstands in New York when the magazine had just started out, and I bought that and a couple of other rap magazines. I flipped to the last page first and XXL was dissing me. What the fuck?
“I don’t even know if I read the whole article — I was used to reading things like that about me — but it hurt because I felt they didn’t know me to make that kind of judgment. Coming up, I had to deal with that a lot. I wanted to be respectful because what I do is Black music. I knew I was coming into it as a guest in the house. And XXL, The Source, Rap Pages and VIBE were Hip Hop bibles at the time.”
He continued: “I understood, at the same time, everybody’s perception of a white guy coming into Hip Hop and all of a sudden things start happening for him. So, if XXL would’ve even had a conversation with me, maybe they would’ve understood me more.”
Selective memory Kurupt? Death Row was dissing Ruthless Records and Uncle Luke out the gate. Don’t even get me started on the mess Makaveli made.
Death Row was successful from day 1. What’s your point?
Y’all love for Eminem really does not allow you to listen. Deathrow dissed rappers, Eminem dissed successful pop artists record companies were making a ton of. You saw the backlash Kanye got from his Taylor Swift moment, now imagine if he said the same things ‘em said about Brittney, Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. Kurupt gave ‘Em his respect as a Mc but y’all live in this delusional world where being white has NO advantages in life, gtfoh.
@ yap. Youre slow, you aint worth my time. @ Stop It. Em has dissed Canibus, Dilated Peoples, Ja Rule and many other credible rappers. Ironically you need to stop cappin.
Rule No 1: Never outshine the master. Kanye never got blackballed for the Taylor swift thing, or for the George bush thing, or even the slavery thing, in the contrary, that helped out his career. Kanye got blackballed for the Jewish stuff he said. His distributors, and it has little to do with them being Jewish, and more with Kanye biting the hand that feeds him, again, never outshine your master. These pop artist can’t do anything to Eminems career because the ones that Eminem can’t and WONT diss, are the main label heads at interscope. In the contrary, Eminem dissing people blings in more money to interscope and thats all they care about. At the top of the chain, the only color that people see, is green. They don’t care if your white, black, brown, or orange.
@ BITCH PLEASE. you see the bigger picture. The thing all these artist I mentioned have in common is that they were all signed to Interscope under Jimmy. At the end of the day they are all about banking on drama. These slow and dense herbs on here don’t get it.
Thats because Ems disses of Nsync, Brittany and other pop stars was seen a comical, and not at all personal, obviously. Plus Em broke boundaries by pushing the limit. How’d NWA get away with their highly sexual, dirty songs? How?!?! They’re BLACK! According to you, they would’ve been canceled, and black people can’t push boundaries. Newsflash, people can and do. Nwa did. Em did. It wasn’t a white or black thing. With Em, being white was actually another controversy.
All Facts @ Jay. Hence, Kurupt has selective memory. Too much booze maybe.
he went after britney spears and boy bands and wack pop music which was mostly white people. also 50 cent did the same thing with piggy bank
What piggy bank song did you hear? The one I heard 50 went after rappers not highly successful pop artist.
This loser obviously never heard of how to rob by 50 which came out late ’98- early ’99 smh
Another day. Another awful take on Eminem that has to with his skin color, and not his skill. While this isn’t new; I am surprised it’s coming from Kurupt being how much respect Em has for him. It’s funny that the old school demands for people to honor tradition and pay respect to the artists that paved the way; but it almost never goes the other way around.
The reason Eminem could diss whoever he wanted was bevause he knew how to destroy them end of story. Em came from a generation where it was cool to watch people get destroyed. Now everyone is soft and wants to cry about race. If you wanna diss Eminem, make a record that hits. Benzino couldnt do it. ICP couldnt do it. Nick Cannon couldnt do it. End of story.
Exactly. Eminem has earned his crown and I wish everyone would stay in their lane. Eminem has so much for the game, he ran down every rapper who pioneered the game. You had your time, his is now, and someone with guts to say what scared black will be on top.
what crown? he’s not the king of hip hop. Nas and Jay are leagues above him. Em is overrated and has sucked the past 15 years.
No…he got away with it because he’s good. Plus more often than not rappers came after him first. Often because he was white. He beat most fair and square. We terrible in the black community for using race all the time.
He also got away with it because he was right. The fuck wanna bump christina and back street boys?
Eminem is the fave rapper of homosexuals everywhere. Us heteros don’t indulge in his queer bait trailer trash garbage rap.
Ur mother should’ve done society a favor and swallowed you
This white privilege…..Begs a question!?!
If he has white privilege now surely he has earned it?
Being a white rapper coming up in the Detroit battle scene. Where did his white privilege get him then???
He had to work 3 times as hard to get where others got. Once he got there it may have been easier.
BUT GETTING THERE….Come on!
So when he blew up, surely that was just the whole 9 yards being levelled out?!
Face it if you can speak English & understand the context of vernacular. You must be deaf to not give him his props, lyrically, he can’t be spoken to
This white privilege…..Begs a question!?!
If he has white privilege now surely he has earned it?
Being a white rapper coming up in the Detroit battle scene. Where did his white privilege get him then???
He had to work 3 times as hard to get where others got. Once he got there it may have been easier.
BUT GETTING THERE….Come on!
So when he blew up, surely that was just the whole 9 yards being levelled out?!
Face it if you can speak English & understand the context of vernacular. You must be deaf to not give him his props, lyrically, he can’t be spoken to
HipHopDX, I check your site everyday for news and updates, but you really need to change the title of this article. It’s misleading. You made it sound like Kurupt was sparking some kind of beef with Eminem. After reading the article, I could see that wasn’t the case at all. I see anything here that could have been misquoted. I got respect for what you’re all doing over there, but don’t stoop to that click bate level.
Eminem is white ??? Thanks for clarifying that for us Kurupt
Eminem is a pop artist. He manipulated pop sensibilities by beefing with other pop artists who lacked the medium to reply. There’s nothing magical there. Every time he had a new project coming out he’d gather a lot of press and a lot of adoration from people who hated the pop stars that he targeted. The kiss of death for Eminem is the fact that his music hasn’t aged well. Most of what he made in his prime (e.g., the violent lyrics directed towards his mother and the pop star disses) are far out of fashion today if not downright irrelevant.
A pop artist that outraps your favorite rapper lol
#ShutYoDumbAssUp
While I hate anything has released the past decade or more, to say he’s irrelevant today wouldn’t make sense considering he’s in the top 5 most popular artists of any genre in Spotify, which is mainly used by the youth.
LEAVE EMINEM ALONE!!! HE’S A HUMAN BEING!!!
these old heads in need of some extra cash find themselves on this podcast where they’re essentially paid to talk some shit about popular rappers (Eminem in this instance) because it garners a lot of clicks and views….sad stuff
I’m 100% wt you on this one kurupt!
Settle down, it wasn’t a diss. Even Dr Dre has said similar things. I agree hearing about Eminem’s skin colour is getting tiring though. He also gets more scrutiny in hip hop than black rappers because he’s white. It’s swings and roundabouts.
This is incorrect. He got away with being unlistenable because he was white. And MTV had a boner for bleached blonde boy band rappers in the early 2000s.
Eminem has the guts to speak out f for the poor whites and blacks. Black People with platforms and a fan base are afraid to tell it like it is . The man grew up dirt poor,not accepted by whites or black. Stop calling him the white boy. No one call others the black boy. Too much negativity.