Eminem Was Hurt Over White Rapper Criticisms During His Early Career

Eminem is a benchmark when it comes to hip-hop and rap music. His contributions to the genre and the norm-breaking addition to music are undeniable. He has now opened up about the criticism he received for being a white rapper during the early parts of his career.

The Detroit rap legend reflected on his legendary career in a rare and exclusive cover story with XXL. He explained that because of the hue of his skin, things got off to a tough start for him. Em anticipated having to deal with it because he was a stranger in a genre dominated by Black people.

Slim Shady was getting a lot of heat due to being a white rapper in the game. He remembers going to one of those newsstands in New York when the XXL magazine had just started out. He flipped to the last page first only to find out XXL was dissing him.

I don’t even know if I read the whole article. I was used to reading things like that about me, but it hurt because I felt they didn’t know me to make that kind of judgment. Coming up, I had to deal with that a lot. I wanted to be respectful because what I do is Black music. I knew I was coming into it as a guest in the house. And XXL, The Source, Rap Pages and Vibe were Hip Hop bibles at the time.”

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Everybody’s perception of a white guy coming into hip-hop was a major hit to his psyche at that time. There were talks all around the community as his career skyrocketed in just a matter of time to surprise most people in the genre. He wishes XXL would’ve had a conversation with him to clarify matters then.

“I understood, at the same time, everybody’s perception of a white guy coming into Hip Hop and all of a sudden things start happening for him. So, if XXL would’ve even had a conversation with me, maybe they would’ve understood me more.”

Eminem ended up targeting the famed outlet in his song “Marshall Mathers” off his third studio album, The Marshall Mathers LP. The diss in question had Em speaking on helping XXL sell more magazines at the time. The beef wouldn’t last, as Eminem said he doesn’t quite remember how he patched things up with the magazine.

Life went full circle after being interviewed by the same magazine that dissed him for being different and successful. Despite the criticism and crooked eyes pointing toward him, Em turned out to be a legend of the genre.

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