Eminem has caught some flak after he used the Megan Thee Stallion shooting incident as a punchline in his new song “Houdini.”
The newly released track—which was accompanied by a video featuring Pete Davidson and Dr. Dre—sees Em providing his thoughts on the current state of culture, including a moment where he questions what a younger version of himself would think: “He’d probably say that everything is gay.” It’s also got questionable bars about him having a “transgender cat,” and includes an R. Kelly joke.
But the portion of the song that’s garnering the most attention is the end of the first verse, which references the 2020 shooting of Megan Thee Stallion by Canadian rapper Tory Lanez.
If I was to ask for Megan Thee
Stallion if she would collab with me
Would I really have a shot at a feat?
I don’t know but I’m glad to beBack, like
Lanez was sentenced to ten years in prison last year after he was found guilty of shooting Megan Thee Stallion during a 2020 incident. He has maintained his innocence.
Eminem’s reference to the shooting has inspired less-than-impressed reactions from fans on social media, who suggested it was unnecessarily mean-spirited by making a joke out of a Black woman’s trauma.
The provocation, a staple of Eminem’s music for at least two decades at this point, is all the more questionable because Em previously interpolated Megan’s “Body” on his 2021 track “Killer (Remix).” She later referenced “The Real Slim Shady” in her guest verse on Lil Nas X’s “Dolla Sign Slime” that same year.
Drake previously referenced the shooting in a controversial verse on “Circo Loco,” a track from his collaboration album with 21 Savage, Her Loss.
“I been fuckin’ on a French bitch, c’est la vie,” he rapped. “I just put ‘em on a jet, now they all Italian/Way I’m dressin’ ‘til I been to a thousand islands/This bitch lie ‘bout gettin’ shots, but she still a stallion/She don’t even get the joke, but she still smilin’.” Earlier this year, Drake explicitly called for Tory Lanez to be released from prison.
