‘Bagpipes From Baghdad’: The song that started Eminem’s spat with Nick Cannon
Eminem and Mariah Carey have had a long-standing feud over the years after Slim Shady claimed they were once romantically involved. The Detroit MC has rapped many lines about it, but it was ‘Bagpipes from Baghdad’ that got Nick Cannon riled up and caused issues between them.
On the Dr Dre-produced track from 2009’s Relapse album, Em spits, “Mariah, what’s ever happened to us? Why did we have to break up?” Later in the verse, he mentions Cannon by name, rapping, “Nick Cannon, better back the fuck/ Up, I’m not playin’, I want her back, you punk.” Cannon was married to Carey between 2008 and 2014 before finalising their divorce in 2016. The former couple have two kids together.
Cannon wasn’t happy with Em’s comments and took to his blog to explain his issues. “A mediocre (at best) Eminem record that sounds like it was written in 2001,” he said. “At first, I thought it was old material that had been dug up from when dude ‘fantasised’ about having a pretend fling with Mariah. But all of a sudden I hear my name in the verse! My first reaction was like, ‘This is his new shit? Wow, that’s too bad.'”
He continued: “She has had enough difficulty in her life dealing with racial and ethnicity issues. Believe it or not, Mariah is the same racial mixture as our beloved president, Barack Obama. (Black Father + White Mother = BLACK). Maybe I’m going too far, but I thought we got past the days where white men could spew vulgar obscenities at our beautiful queens and get away with it.”
He added, “What’s next? Are we going to let this trash say something horrible about our lovely first lady, Mrs. Michelle Obama? Or would Marshall have talked sideways out of his neck like this about Oprah Winfrey? This act of racist bigotry cannot go unnoticed.”
Throughout the rest of the song, Em has harsh words for them both, rapping, “Nick Cannon, you prick, I wish you luck with the fuckin’ whore,” and, “I mean, I really want you bad, you c*nt/ Nick, you had your fun, I’ve come to kick you in your sack of junk.”
Addressing those lines, Cannon said, “Calling my wife a ‘c*nt’ and a ‘whore’ is way worse than anything Don Imus could have ever said. So trust, repercussions will be served. Anybody got Al Sharpton’s number?! LOL Let’s not forget about Eminem’s amateur mixtape rants of calling African Americans ‘n*ggas’ and how he hates ‘black bitches.'”
Carey denied that anything happened between her and Eminem in the song ‘Clown’ from 2002’s Charmbracelet album. “You should’ve never intimated we were lovers/ When you know very well we never even touched each other,” she sang.
Em also rapped about Carey on ‘Superman’ from The Eminem Show and ‘Jimmy Crack Corn’ from Eminem Presents: The Re-Up. However, by 2010, he stated he was done talking about Carey in the public eye. “I really don’t want to talk about her anymore,” he told Vibe. “I don’t want to keep beating a dead horse. I’m not even going to comment about it. I’m done with that whole situation. I said what I had to say. I’m done.”