Rapper Eminem rants about racism, white privilege, “crooked police,” their so-called oppression of black people, and the embarrassment of being white in his latest politically charged anthem “Untouchable.”
The six-minute song starts with the Detroit rapper rhyming from the perspective of a corrupt white police officer who rationalizes racial profiling and hunting and killing black people by telling himself “It’s for the red, white and blue” and “No one’s ever indicted you.”
Most of the second verse hears what appears to be the viewpoint of an unforgiving white police officer verbally brutalizing black people, as Eminem sings:
We fighting a crime war. Here come the swine. Tryna’ clean up these streets from all these minorities.
Eminem shifts perspectives to first person in the last half of the second verse, saying:
It like we’re drifting back into the 60s. Having black-skin is risky, ’cause this keeps happening. Throughout history, African-American’s have been treated like shit. And I admit, there have been times where it’s been embarrassing to be a white boy.
The third verse hears the Grammy-winning rapper reference Black Lives Matter, police brutality, and the NFL player’s and Colin Kaepernick’s protests during the Nation Anthem through the eyes of a black American:
Home of the bravest still, racist spills. So the whole nation feels like a plantation field. In a country that claims that it was foundation on based on united states ideals. That had its Natives killed. Got you singing the Star Spangled Banner to a piece of cloth that represents the land of the free that made people slaves to build.
Eminem shared the new track and artwork for his upcoming “Revival” album on Friday. The album art sees the rapper behind an American flag, acting as a veil, holding his head in an apparent look of shame.
The rapper made headlines earlier this year, attacking Breitbart News executive chairman Steve Bannon and saying “f**k you” to his fans that voted for President Donald Trump in a profanity-filled freestyle; the video for which premiered at the BET Hip Hop Awards in October.
Eminem defended the BET rap this week in an interview with pop icon Elton John, saying it: “was about having the right to stand up to oppression.
“I mean, that’s exactly what the people in the military and the people who have given their lives for this country have fought for — for everybody to have a voice and to protest injustices and speak out against s**t that’s wrong,” he said.
“We’re not trying to disrespect the military, we’re not trying to disrespect the flag, we’re not trying to disrespect our country,” Eminem continued. “But s**t is going on that we want to make you aware of. We have a president who does not care about everybody in our country; he is not the president for all of us, he is the president for some of us. He knows what he’s doing.”
The rapper said President Trump doesn’t “give a fuck about anybody else in America” “as long as he’s got his base” of supporters.
“But guess what? There’s more of us than there are of them,” he said. “I still feel like America is the greatest country to live in. This is my opinion. But we have issues that we need to work on and we need to do better.”
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