Benzino got emotional during a recent “Drink Champs” interview on Feb. 17. The “Call My Name” rapper was driven to tears while discussing his longstanding beef with fellow artist Eminem.
It’s customary to drink spirits on the podcast hosted by N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN, and Benzino had more than his fair share of liquor during the nearly three-hour-long interview. The 58-year-old became intoxicated and ranted about his not liking Eminem several times during the sitdown before eventually suggesting that “The Real Slim Shady” artist could help racism in America.
The two men began beefing in 2002 after The Source magazine, co-owned by Benzino, gave Eminem’s album “The Eminem Show” a 4/5 mic rating. Since then, the two rappers have dissed each other in their music throughout the years. According to People magazine, Eminem most recently fired a diss track at Benzino, and his daughter, singer Coi Leray, on Lyrical Lemonade’s new album, “All Is Yellow,” released last month.
“What is the opposite of Benzino? A giraffe / ‘Go at his neck,’ How the f—k is that? / How can I go at somethin’ he doesn’t have / Arm so short he can’t even touch his hands / When they’re above his head doin’ jumpin’ jacks.” He said in the song “Doomsday Pt. 2.” Eminem also raps, “Guess that Coi Leray feat’s in the toilet, aye?”
Benzino responded with two diss tracks of his own: “Vulturius” and “Rap Elvis.”
During his sitdown with “Drink Champs,” Benzino did not shy away from partaking in the alcohol. Nor did he shy away from discussing his feud with Eminem, who he mentioned several times throughout the podcast.
“So what, I’m drunk,” Benzino admitted at the 59-minute mark before revealing, “I come on here to get drunk. It’s the only thing that can make me speak” at the two-and-a-half hour mark with slurred speech.
However, moments later, things escalated when the obviously intoxicated rapper said that he no longer had a problem with Eminem after noting that artists needed to stop criticizing each other and come together.
“Why are we like this, bro?… I don’t have nothing against Eminem,” he said. “He can rap, but I care about us more. I don’t want to talk about it no more…. My daughter came to industry figuring, ‘Hey, I gotta be cool with Eminem because everybody is against my dad.’”
“I don’t hate Eminem,” he continued during his emotional breakdown. “I don’t know him to hate him. I don’t hate white people. Tired of this s—t, man. It’s just too much. I don’t want to be the bad guy… All me and Eminem gotta do is sit down and talk with each other. Let’s battle, let’s do whatever… I’d hug him.”
“Eminem ain’t no bad person,” Benzino added. “He belongs in hip-hop. It’s a big racist problem in America right now, and Eminem could probably stop half of it.”
The recording artist defended the emotional interview in a post shared on Instagram on Feb. 18 with the caption, “I had so much built up anger, frustration and evil built up inside of me…….Ngl, minus the alcohol….I needed that s—t…..it really helped.”
The post included a diagram of a man crying with the heading, “Reasons why crying is good.” Some of the reasons listed in the diagram are “It removes toxins from the body” and “helps you let go of bottled-up emotions.”
The recording artist also shared a post that read, “I see a lot of people laughing at benzino
crying, I don’t find that funny at all, I seen killers get emotional and start breaking down In tears. Crying don’t make you weak, crying is just a human emotion, don’t ever get it twisted, a nigga will cry right before he push ya s—t back 100.”
Eminem has not yet publicly responded to Benzino’s interview.
