It’s an hour or so after nightfall in Detroit, Michigan, and local god Marshall “Eminem” Mathers is speeding around town in a Mercedes with his old friend, enemy, and decidedly less wealthy rapper, Royce da 5’9”. Royce is leaning out of the passenger side window, stunting at girls like the titular scrub in that old TLC hit, trying to convince them he’s got money even though he’s gotta cruise in his buddy’s whip. Between drive-by come-ons, he leans back into the plush leather seat, fantasizing lazily about murdering cops. Eminem meanwhile wonders who has announced “I’m back” more times in a single career — him or Jay-Z — not really paying attention to the road. A vision of Nicki Minaj’s ass briefly flitters through his mind, as does one of a nearby Walmart.
Later on, Royce has moved to the backseat to make room for Slim “Eminem” Shady’s latest squeeze, some local chick with another dude’s ring on her finger. The details of her face have begun to disappear behind a thickening veneer of makeup, but she looks a lot like the kinda girls Em glorified on the utter nadir of last year’s Recovery, “White Trash Party.” Slim’s tryna get some ass, but he’s ambivalent — doesn’t want to work too hard for it, y’dig?
“Put up your visor, I’m getting kinda ticked,” he finally snarls, sounding oddly meek as he breaks the silence. This girl has stayed leaning forward to “slut-powder” her face up, thereby blocking Em’s view of his side mirror — a safer driver than you might think! — and he’s growing tired of the inconvenience. Manning up, he threatens her with violence, then commands her to get in the backseat with Royce, but the girl’s having none of it and slaps him right ‘cross the face. His feelings hurt, Eminem shouts “cunt” a couple times, recalls the last time a girlfriend upset him (he told everyone he knew that she had AIDS), and finally cranks up the stereo, revealing what’s been droning nauseously in the backdrop all along: “Bagpipes From Baghdad,” one of the worst songs from 2009’s frequently embarrassing Relapse. He just spent most of his last album, Recovery, trying to explain that he actually hated Relapse (and the other stinker before it, Encore), but he’s gotta admit it makes a pretty great soundtrack for misogyny.
But fuck it, fuck that ho anyway; Em and Royce just went to the club for the very purpose of losing her. Some absolutely horrendous femme rap crap is pumping through the surround sound, but damn if the Bad Meets Evil boys ain’t feelin’ it. They feel huge right now. The DJ switches it up by flipping a particularly hedonistic sample of Mike Epps’ stand-up comedy, and all of a sudden, Royce and Em are fucking inhaling all the drugs, brooze, and nicotine they can find. Pretty much the only redeeming thing about Recovery was that it was nice to hear Eminem had finally renounced his addictions for good, but man — whatever. No one in the club really cares to know what Royce’s “official” stance on drugs is, but it sure looks like he’s having fun.
Some “hussy-ass fusses” on the floor try to steal a peck or two from our heroes, but Em ain’t having that — especially not after realizing he’s supposed to be headlining a stadium concert just a few blocks and minutes away at this very moment. Mathers bolts downtown and shows up late to find that opening act Bruno Mars has been playing an extended set to buy him some time, and much obliged, he now joins the young pop star onstage. Em’s a little embarrassed that he’s still shitfaced, but Mars’ taste for coke is no secret (“I’m a fucking musician!” he shouted, by way of explanation, to a GQ reporter a few months back), so it’s all good. Mars isn’t exactly the kind of guy you’d expect to find hanging with Slim Shady, granted, but Em did feature on a track with B.o.B. and the girl from Paramore last year, and Mars did write the chorus to Cee-Lo Green’s great “Fuck You” — so it seems like they can maybe meet each other halfway on this one. Either way, Mars looks out over the “sky full of lighters” forming one by one in the crowd, and, inspired by the pretty constellation they make, improvises a hook that sounds an awful lot like that “If I Were a Boy” song he’d heard on the radio earlier that day (or maybe “What If God Was One Of Us,” which is what Beyoncé must have been listening to the day she recorded it). It’s touching, in a Backstreet-Boys-meets-“Forever-Young” kind of way, but even when basking in the glow of his many milk-eyed fan-sheep, Eminem can’t help but feel pissed.
“I would never do nothing to let you cowards fuck my world up,” he screams frantically. Thoughts about carving up the ribcages of everyone who’s ever not liked his music briefly stoke his ire, and Em can’t help but blurt them out onto the mic. The vitriol does little to bother or confuse the assembled masses, however, who seem happy to continue heralding Eminem the best emcee alive so long as he keeps rapping as fast and shoutingly as he has been on every last verse he’s released in the past couple of years, the words themselves be damned.
Hours earlier (or what feels like it), at the start of this long and tortured day, Eminem is holding a press conference with Royce by his side. The purpose of the meeting is ostensibly to explain to the gathered fans and journalists why Em is now spending so much time around this particular Detroit rap contemporary of his — a rapper whose name last resonated in the public memory as someone who Eminem was “beefing” with circa 2003. Shortly after a few cursory opening remarks, however, things descend into the madness that will define their relationship: Eminem, ever preoccupied with how others are perceiving him relative to his peers, addresses the rappers of the world as “little pissants,” and threatens to “stomp their farms.” Royce, growing visibly uneasy, interrupts Eminem and tries to refocus the meeting around a half-baked Christianity theme, but winds up being cut off in turn by his running mate, who issues the following:
“Sip piss and bleed, this is a different breed of MCs/ I swear, better be aware, there’s too much at stake/ And to find someone this raw on a beat is rare/ You can kiss my ass and the shit stains on my underwear that I don’t even wear.”
The beats suck, too.
More about: Bad Meets Evil (Eminem and Royce da 5'9")
