Image: Eminem 3 – Lollapalooza 2011 by – EMR – via Flickr (CC BY 2.0 DEED)
TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains sensitive topics including sex trafficking, racketeering, aggressive language and violence involving the recent indictment of Sean “Diddy” Combs.
The events of Sept. 16 sent shockwaves through the music industry as famous hip hop rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs was indicted for sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy (the crime of engaging in an illegal scheme) and transportation to engage in prostitution, as stated on Sept. 24 in a USA Today article. However, famous rapper Marshall Mathers, more famously known as Eminem, has never been shy when it comes to speaking out about Combs through his music.
The disses began as far back as 1996, when on the “Soundbombing II” compilation album Eminem says, “Original Bad Boy on the case, cover your face / Came in the place blowed, and sprayed Puffy with mace.” This refers to Sean Combs’ record label, Bad Boy Records, as Eminem also refers to Combs by his other nickname, Puffy, when dissing the infamous parties Combs would host.
While Combs is currently under an ongoing investigation by Homeland Security Investigations and is currently pleading “not guilty” to the charges, these disses from Eminem have resurfaced and raised new concerns and suspicions about how it took this long for Combs to be caught, as well as the other names mentioned in his disses and their involvement. This includes the verse from his song “Killshot” (2018), a diss-track aimed at another famous music artist, Machine Gun Kelly, “Kells, the day you put out a hit is the day Diddy admits that he put the hit out that got Pac killed.”
The “hit” Eminem is referring to is about the conspiracy that Combs caused Tupac’s death by hiring a hitman to target him. This speculation comes from the supposed ongoing feud between the two artists; as People Magazine states, “In another past interview with authorities noted as part of the case, [Keefe D] Davis more specifically claimed Combs solicited him to kill Knight and [Tupac] Shakur.” Eminem is known for his rather vulgar diss tracks, so the nature of his lyrics come as no surprise. However, what’s surprising is the correlation between what Eminem is implying in these lyrics and recent events involving the indictment of Sean Combs.
This leads us back to this year, when Eminem released his latest album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) that includes one of his more accusatory disses towards Combs: “…a R-A-P-E-R / Got so many S-As, S-As / Wait, he didn’t just spell RAPPER and leave out a P, did he?”
This album was released in July, while Diddy was not arrested until September. Eminem’s stance on Combs has long been hostile, which is not unusual due to Eminem’s music style always having an aggressive edge. Yet, this album’s lyrics and the clear manner that Eminem has chosen to call out Combs shows Eminem’s lack of fear when it comes to revealing the dark side of the music industry. After learning that not all of Eminem’s lyrics were just for shock factor, but rather held some truth, who else is he dissing that we should perhaps pay more attention to?
Grace Powell is a second-year Media & Culture major with a minor in Journalism.