Eminem takes shots at Megan Thee Stallion, woke culture, and more in “Houdini” video
"Houdini" is the first single from Eminem's upcoming 12th studio album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce)
Music News Megan Thee Stallion
Shady’s back, but it would probably be better if he wasn’t. Eminem’s newest single, “Houdini”—the first from his forthcoming 12th studio album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce)—is a cringy screed against what he probably calls “wokeism” that definitely should have stayed asleep.
Apart from not even being the best song called “Houdini” this year, Eminem’s single includes some lines that you really do need to see to believe. “My transgender cat’s Siamese/Identifies as black, but acts Chinese,” he raps at one point. “Sometimes I wonder what the old me’d say/If he could see the way shit is today (Look at this shit man)/He’d probably say that everything is gay,” he raps in another, before whispering, “Like happy.” Apart from the obvious eyeroll content here, it’s also just goofily amateurish writing. But that seems to be the point. “But fuck that if I think that shit, I’ma say that shit/Cancel me what? Okay that’s it,” he wrote. Well, he certainly did say it.
But while taking shots at himself (and his kids, who he calls “brats”) is Eminem’s business, becoming yet another rapper to turn Megan Thee Stallion’s shooting at the hands of Tory Lanez into a cheap joke is not. “If I was to ask for Megan Thee Stallion if she would collab with me/Would I really have a shot at a feat?” he raps, over a caption in the video highlighting the icky attempt at a pun. Eminem isn’t the first rapper to make light of this incredibly traumatic event—Drake did it on his Her Loss track, “Circo Loco,” and Nicki Minaj wrote an entire song about it, which she unsubtly titled “Big Foot,” kicking off the two artist’s beef earlier this year. Hopefully, he’ll be the last.
At least it might be easy to miss the Megan lyric in the sea of everything else going on in this video, from the R. Kelly reference (“Bumpin’ R. Kelly’s favorite group the black guy pees”) to the cameos from stars like Pete Davidson, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, and Shane Gillis. (Of course Shane Gillis is here.) The video is styled as a comic book adaptation with Eminem taking on his Rap Boy persona to square off against a blonde, 2002 version of himself. If you are in the mood to watch a blonde superhero fight the woke mob, we’d honestly recommend revisiting season 3 of The Boys instead.
86 Comments
At least he isn’t taking shots at Bud Light cans.
…yet.
The Megan line was particularly lame in song full on lameness. They’re not in the same generation, same social circles, or even the same subgenres. It’s just unprovoked douchery at a woman because that’s what he’s been doing for 25 years and his fanbase of incels eat it up.
>which she unsubtly titled “Big Foot,” kicking off the two artist’s beef earlier this year. Hopefully, he’ll be the last.“Big Foot” was a response to Megan’s track “Hiss,” not the other way around.
Hmm, I thought it was fun! I mean it’s a Slim Shady song, very back to basics. Not as wordy as a lot of his recent stuff. In the context of the Slim Shady character it’s about what I’d expect that guy to talk about in 2024. Nothing felt particularly shocking in it, it’s just silly fun — the transgender Siamese cat identifying as black but acting Chinese is absurdist if anything.
Yeah, I haven’t liked Eminem past his two first albums, but I thought this was a fun tongue in cheek return to the Slim Shady persona. I mean the video literally has Slim Shady come through a portal to current day to appal Eminem with how immature he used to be in the past.Plus the de-aging is nigh on perfect!
I’m just going to say here that I had a Siamese cat and he was the best cat ever. Siamese cats for life!
Hasn’t this always been his thing. Saying edgy and controversial shit in his songs.
Yeah, but he used to put effort into that.
Yeah, lines like “You can suck my dick if you don’t like my shit, cause I was high when I wrote this so suck my dick” were absolute poetry lol.The only difference between old/current Eminem is now he’s making fun of things his fans like, and suddenly they can’t take a joke.
You’re such a repetitive loser
I don’t think Eminem actually believes this stuff, he has used the Slim Shady alter ego to represent angry young men in his later career while empathetically distancing himself from the Trump crowd who tried to co-opt him. And he is killing that character off with this album.
Boy lost his juice the moment he made it to the top. All been diminishing returns since.You want Em to make good music again? He needs to be back in a trailer, struggling to eat, his personal life in shambles. The interesting thing is he knows it and obviously no one would ever make that trade.
It’s so exhausting to see practically every rich famous white guy who reaches a certain age adopt these same tired tropes about “wokeism” simply because they amuse themselves with it and assume that everyone will be just as amused. It’s old, it’s unoriginal, and it’s the #1 sign that someone has become out of touch but is raging against the dying of the light.
This year my Dad was telling me about a “joke” he did. He’s avid at the curling club on a night that was “woman’s curl” he showed up and was like “I identify as she now”. When he told me this he paused expecting laughter afterward it was such an awful silence.
But Jerry Seinfeld had a hit show back in the 90’s thanks to countless other people’s talents and he made a lot of money and let’s not forget Bee Movie and…
Clutching his pearls about wokeness, he must angling for a free Tesla. If I need a dose of authentic rap rage, I’ll stick with MC dalek.
He really needs to reinvent himself, like Snoop Dogg:
take any job offered to him solely for the money and do the absolute minimum? He’s been dreary for seemingly decades now
Perhaps. But Snoop has also been able to keep his brand alive for all these decades without resorting to desperate right-wing pandering, which is more than we can say for Eminem.
Em should have thought ahead and wrote a hit song about an alcohol drink with a short enough title to fit on a variety of bottles and cans.
Snoop has done an amazing job of stretching 2 1/2 albums worth of good material into a decades long career in misc entertainment.
I’ve always found his voice incredibly grating, so apart from a few of the catchier songs from 20-ish years ago, I will switch stations. I can at least recognize he has/had talent, but that was years ago. He’s just annoying now and just another example of white people feeling the need to punch down for the sake of money or cred.
People are still making jokes about R. Kelly peeing? I guess Em really wanted to embrace an old man phase of his career.
Old Man Yells at Cloud
Oh no, a pun. That monster. He seems pretty silly at this point, hard to get worked up over such self-deprecating bullshit
Eminem is pretty much Trey Parker and Matt Stone in music form at this point.
The only difference between old/new South Park and Eminem is that now they’re making fun of things their fans like, and apparently no one can take a joke unless it’s at the expense of a group they don’t like.
Did they cum yet? You’ve been sucking their dicks for so long.
Who the fuck has tried to cancel or even cared about Eminem for the last decade and change?
You don’t remember #canceleminem trending on TikTok in 2020? There was genuine outrage from Gen Z over “Love the Way You Lie.”https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a35765776/why-eminem-gen-z-cancelled-tone-deaf-lyrics-explained/
No baby. Some of us aren’t terminally online virgins.
My transgender cat’s Siamese/Identifies as black, but acts Chinese…they’ve only got the one joke.
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Old white man syndrome strikes again.