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“Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Corinthians 15:33).
“Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:1-16).
The real name of superstar white rapper Eminem is Marshall Mathers III (b. 1972). He has sold more than 220 million records and was the best-selling music artist of the 2000s. Rolling Stone magazine dubbed him “the King of Hip Hop.” In 2009, Billboard magazine named him “Artist of the Decade” and in 2015 listed him as one of “the greatest rappers of all time.” He is number 83 on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Eminem’s second album, The Slim Shady LP, 1999, launched him into rapper stardom. The Slim Shady character, Eminem’s “alter ego,” is a “drug-dealing, bloodthirsty thug who spits furious rhymes about murder, rape, drugs and living by the law of the urban jungle.” He claims its all just entertainment, like a horror movie (“Robert Hilburn, “Has He No Shame?” Los Angeles Times, May 14, 2000). As for his filthy, degrading, violent raps about women, he says, “I don't hate women in general. They just make me mad sometimes” (“Emma Brockes Meets Eminem,” The Guardian, Nov. 12, 1999). The vicious song “Just the Two of Us” (also called “97 Bonnie and Clyde”) is about a man who kills the mother of his child and has the following conversation with his daughter on the way to dispose of the body: “Where’s mama? She’s just taking a little nap in the trunk/ Oh, that smell? Dada must have runned over a skunk.” Mathers actually used his four-year-old daughter’s vocals in this vile song. He said later that he and his girlfriend, Kim, were not getting along at the time and that he actually wanted to murder her like that.
Eminem won a Grammy in February 2000 for this vile album and it was certified 4x platinum in November 2000, which shows how wicked the music industry and the culture at large has become.
Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers album, which appeared in June 2000, is described by a secular music reviewer as “an hour-plus of vile, hate-filled spew, dripping with references to rape, murder and violence toward women, gays and pretty much anyone Eminem doesn’t like. On the opening track, the rapper even threatens to rape and kill his estranged mother, who in real life is suing him for remarks he made about her on his debut album, The Slim Shady LP” (Dan Durchholz, “Eminem tops the charts — and goes over the edge,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 25, 2000, p. F3). She won the suit in 2001.
The Bible warns, “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it” (Proverbs 30:17).
The song “Kim” in The Marshall Mathers album is a vicious rant of anger and hatred toward the rapper’s wife, climaxing in her murder. In the song he destroys her furniture and murders her four-year-old stepson by slitting his throat. He then drives her to the woods where she tried to run away but is caught, and he slits her throat while screaming, “Bleed ... Bleed!” The song ends with the sound of a body being dragged through the grass and thrown into the trunk of the car. (“97 Bonnie and Clyde” begins with this scene and proceeds to describe the burial of the body.) Mathers admitted that he wrote the song about his own wife and that he was filled with hatred when he created the lyrics. He said he wanted “to scream” (Eminem, Angry Blond, 2000).
When he played the song to his wife, he told her, “[I]t shows how much I care about you. To even think about you this much. To even put you on a song like this.” Murderous “love” is not love. The “love” of rock/hip hop is not love, it is lust. God’s Word defines real love. “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5).
Countless hip hop-loving men have murdered their wives and “baby mammas,” but of course this has nothing to do with the music and the culture it has created. It’s just entertainment. It’s just art.
The song “Stan” in The Marshall Mathers album is about a deranged man who kills himself and his girlfriend. Yet Q magazine named it the third-greatest rap song of all time, and Rolling Stone ranked it 290th in the magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.
Marshall Mathers sold 1.7 million copies in its first week, making it the second biggest opening week for any album in U.S. history. Within the first month it had sold 5 million copies.
By 2017, the 45-year-old Mathers had made no moral progress and was still spewing out filth and violence. He appeared on the song “No Favors” in Big Sean’s album I Decided, calling President Trump vile names and rapping about brutally raping conservative commentator Ann Coulter. It’s just art.
Beginning in 1989 (when she was 15), Mathers lived on and off with his girlfriend, Kimberley, who was 15 at the beginning of the relationship. In December 1995, they had a girl, Hailie Jade. In June 1999, they married but divorced in 2001. They remarried in January 2006 but divorced yet again three months later.
Eminem had a powerful drug addiction for many years. He said he would consume from 40-60 Valium and 30 Vicodin tablets a day. He overdosed on methadone in 2007. Doctors said he had taken the equivalent of four bags of heroin.
“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
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