When Eminem unleashed on President Donald Trump at the BET Hip Hop Awards awhile back, he did something that few musicians have done before: He directed his ire toward his own fans, some of whom are Trump supporters.
And since then, the Detroit rapper said, he has no regrets.
"At the end of the day, if I did lose half my fan base, then so be it, because I feel like I stood up for what was right and I'm on the right side of this," he told Billboard in an interview posted Thursday. "I don't see how somebody could be middle class, busting their a-- every single day, paycheck to paycheck, who thinks that that f------ billionaire is gonna help you."
When the iconic emcee slammed the President in an explosive 4.5-minute cypher freestyle, "The Storm," this line directed at his own fans particularly stood out because artists often avoid offending their supporters:
"And any fan of mine who's a supporter of his, I'm drawing in the sand a line, you're either for or against, and if you can't decide who you like more and you're split on who you should stand beside, I'll do it for it for you with this. F--- you," Eminem rapped, raising his middle finger directly at his own fans.
Trump and the White House have not responded to Eminem's freestyle.
When Eminem released his politically themed album, "Revival," in December, it was also full of attacks on the President.
"When I (put out "The Storm"), I felt that everybody who was with him at that point doesn't like my music anyway," he told Billboard. "I get the comparison with the non-political-correctness, but other than that, (Trump and I) are polar opposites."
However, some of the Detroit rapper's conservative fans did turn on him.
He addressed this development in the "Chloraseptic" remix, in which he criticizes mumble rappers -- a new subgenre in hip-hop -- and boasts that he still outsells them, despite losing half of his fans: "Then I took a stand / Went at tan-face (a nickname for Trump) and practically cut my m-----f----- fan base in half / And still outsold you."
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2018 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.
