Skilla Baby takes shots at Eminem and his Detroit roots
Eminem and his Detroit roots have been called into question by local emcee Skilla Baby who claims that Em is no longer the best lyricist from the city and is out of touch with the hood he came from.
Appearing on the Baby This Is Keke Palmer podcast, Skilla Baby (real name Trevon Gardner) asserted that although Eminem’s sales may be the highest, he no longer has status as a high-calibre artist in Motor City. Explaining this, Gardner told Palmer, “Numbers wise, Eminem is the best Detroit rapper, but the gag is nobody would say that in Detroit.”
The ‘Bae’ artist disclosed to Keke Palmer that Detroit regularly changes its opinion about local talent and always supports fresh blood just like any other city. As such, he broke the myth that people in Detroit still hail Eminem as the city’s GOAT.
Listing some names, Skilla stated, “Everybody had a turn being Detroit’s favourite rapper. Sada Baby had a turn, Tee Grizzley had a turn, Babyface Ray had a turn, Veeze is one of Detroit’s best rappers, Baby Smoove. Everybody had their turn being the best in the city. What we lack is consistency. Nobody has consistently been Detroit’s favourite rapper.”
He returned to the subject of Slim Shady’s figures, admitting that it’s an objective fact he has sold the most but doubled down on his assertion that that does not affect public opinion, adding, “Numbers-wise, it’s Eminem, but nobody in Detroit is playing Eminem right now and I was an Eminem fan as a kid. I’m a fan of Eminem, but do we consider him our best rapper? I don’t think Detroit does.”
Skilla Baby continued his conversation about Eminem on Instagram, elaborating, “No shade to anybody names I left off Detroit is full of great rappers, and I can’t forget Kash Doll, Big Sean and Dej [Loaf] of course.”
“For us, it was like Eminem was out of touch, so he wasn’t anybody we could actually relate to. We were never in touch with Eminem. In the hood, in our ghettos and shit, back when he first came out, yeah, [Eminem] was like a hero for us. We always wanted Em to play the position that Royce Da 5’9″ played, but he doesn’t, so he’s not a hero for us no more. Royce Da 5’9″ is like the president of the Marshall Mathers Foundation, and he’s from the hood.”