The story behind Eminem and Will Smith’s beef

Michelangelo with a paint gun in a tantrum. Hi kids, do you like violence? Mom’s spaghetti. Look, there’s a lot of iconic lines from the discography of Eminem.

He is one of the most endlessly quotable figures in not just hip-hop, but music in general. His unique fusion of intricate rhyme schemes, often laugh out loud dark humour, and rapid-fire delivery blends personal storytelling with a heavy satirical overbite for a final product that is as impressive as it is, at times (actually, often) shocking.

One big example – chart topping, Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance winning big – is “The Real Slim Shady”, the lead single of his 2000 album The Marshall Mathers LP. As you are probably already aware, there’s a verse in particular that takes shots at Will Smith.

“Will Smith don’t gotta cuss in his raps to sell records, Well I do, so f**k him and f**k you too,” Slim raps. “You think I give a damn about a Grammy / Half of you critics can’t even stomach me / Let alone stand me.”

So far, classic Eminem rage baiting. This was a time everyone was getting dunked on by the rapper, from Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, to Moby and NSYNC. The Fresh Prince was no exception: in fact, it actually played a part of an ongoing feud between the two big personalities.

According to Smith’s friend and collaborator DJ Jazzy Jeff, Smith said to Eminem after hearing the track “Just The Two Of Us” that Eminem was “either gonna be the biggest flop in hip hop, or you are gonna be the biggest thing that we have ever seen in hip hop.”

According to Jazzy Jeff, Eminem never forgot and the tension seemed to rise after Smith gave a speech at the 1999 Video Music Awards. In Smith’s acceptance speech for his “Miami” win for Best Male Video – something Eminem’s “My Name Is” was also nominated for – the actor and musician said “To all my fans out there, I never killed nobody in none of my records. I never used no profanity and none of my records, and still, I managed to get up here. Peace.”

Which is, arguably, a bit of an annoying take to have, let alone say when you’ve just picked up an award in front of millions of viewers. Eminem took it personally, naturally: but also expanded his grievances against Smith as him snubbing not just himself, but his genre at large.

“First of all, I used to respect Will Smith,” Eminem said. “[Now] he’s dissed the whole genre of rap. He dissed gangsta rap music. And that is one of the most influential musics out there. I respect him for saying his opinion, but not everybody is as happy as Will Smith.”

“Not everybody sees life as happy and as positive as he sees it,” he continued. “So if he wants to rap about birds and bees and flowers, then let him rap about birds and bees and flowers, but don’t dis nobody else.”

This clear aim at Smith’s family-friendly, clean persona highlights the tension between not just these two musicians individually, but the anxiety surrounding the cultural contrast between the family friendly side of the entertainment industry Smith belonged too, and the rawer – and, obviously, way more graphic and explicit, but arguably more ‘real’ – side Eminem had pledged to.