‘s “Rap God” video is a throwback trip with multicolored spazzy geometric patterns behind a shiny-suited, Wayfarer-wearing, bleached-haired Marshall. He’s one-upped Yeezus by claiming to be a god. Now the only step up is for someone to claim they’re bigger than the Beatles.
Besides the usually goofy style he tends to utilize in his music videos, there are a lot of fun references in this one. The most obvious is “The Matrix,” with Eminem jacking into pop culture hip-hop videos, Pong and classic zombie movies. He jumps through some portals (from the “Portal” video game series) and for a split second becomes Pinhead from the “Hellraiser” series.
The song is more than six minutes long, which is a little long for a music video (let’s not even mention about ), who does he think he is? Arcade Fire?
They lyrics to this song are what we’ve come to expect from the white kid from Detroit, filled with f-words (yeah, all of the f-words), talking smack about other rappers (even the untouchable Run DMC? Oh, wait, no, he’s just saying he wants to grow up to be like them, never mind) like Fabulous vs. Ray J, paying homage to his Doctor friend and bringing it down to a serious level (referencing the Columbine shooting). This mixture of goofy, hateful and sentimental lyrics is reminiscent of “My Dads Gone Crazy” from 2002’s “The Eminem Show”: “My songs can make you cry, take you by surprise / And at the same time, make you dry your eyes with the same rhyme / So what you’re seeing is a genius at work.”
And yes, that sounds pretty egotistical and bloated, but then again, he’s saying he’s a rap god in this new endeavor. If nothing else, he sure knows how to push the boundaries of egotism. I doubt the rap pope will ever forgive this one.
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James Garcia is a community reporter at the Loveland Reporter-Herald and a new blogger at Reverb.
