Notorious Los Angeles rapper, The Game once prophetically said “don’t mess with the white boy” and, ever since it appears never a truer word has been spoken in hip hop. Eminem may not have classic album after classic album but his lyrical skills are not to be shrugged off. One establishment that would figure this out to their detriment was The Source.
A noted publication in the world of hip hop, the magazine was rightly seen as a pivotal turning point for the genre. It allowed a mainstream view on to what had previously been seen as a purely underground movement. When The Source gave Nas’ debut album Illmatic five out of five microphones it effectively began the New Yorker’s reign as one of the best mics in the business.
Without the backing of The Source, Nas may never have reached the heights he did. That’s because the magazine was wholeheartedly trusted by the community. Hip hop knew it needed a leading voice and The Source was happy to be it. Until things got a little convoluted in the office and allegiances were aligned with the wrong man as they tried to take down Eminem.
2002 saw the peak of Eminem’s pop-darling career. He had quickly traversed the boundaries of genre and was now routinely being recognised as the face of hip hop and pop as the resident bad boy of the scene. An admittedly gross notion, the Detroit rapper’s rise saw him gain plenty of enemies, including, it would seem, Benzino.
Benzino wasn’t only an editor at the magazine but a middling rapper too. He used his influence inside the magazine to launch an attack on Em. Zino first tried to attack Eminem’s place in hip hop culture at large, pointing to his race as the only reason behind his climb to the top of the rap-pop pile. Equally, his wide acceptance was the antithesis of hip hop’s alternative culture. Failing to really land any blows, Zino then tried to surface footage of Eminem saying the N-word as a young teen.
Eminem would not lie back and take it. He responded with a series of powerful diss tracks. It’s bad enough when Em has another rapper to volley the mic with, but with The Source refusing to fight back using lyrics, despite the odd Zino verse, Eminem had a field day and simply destroyed the mag with a series of funny and foul songs. Undoubtedly, the best is ‘Nail in the Coffin’ which should sit in the pantheon of the greatest diss tracks of all time, even if Em complaining about an ageing rapper now feels a little ironic in the face of his MGK beef.
It effectively ended the credibility of The Source as well as a huge amount of investment. Meanwhile, Eminem sailed off into the sunset to sell millions of records while Benzino slipped off into reality TV infamy.
