Melle Mel isn’t as impressed with Eminem as the folks who made up Billboard and Vibe‘s Top 50 Greatest Rappers of All-Time list. And the hip-hop pioneer thinks Em is only considered a top five rapper because of his race.
On Thursday (March 2), YouTube channel The Art of Dialogue released a new interview clip with Melle Mel where he opined about Eminem‘s status in the rap game and No. 5 ranking on Billboard and Vibe‘s list, in particular.
“Obviously, he’s a capable rapper,” Melle Mel noted. “If you talking about sales, he sold more than everybody. If you talking about rhyme styles, OK, he got rhyme style. But he’s White. So, if Eminem was just another n***a like all the rest of us, would he be top five on that list where a n***a that can rhyme just as good as him is [No.] 35? That had records and all that. He’s 35.”
Melle Mel went on to say if he was White he’d be greater than Elvis due to his contributions to the hip-hop culture.
“Anybody can be mad, they can feel how they want to feel,” he continued about Eminem. “If they don’t think that race plays a part in the equation of how great he is…I heard one of the dudes that’s down with him, [Royce 5’9′], I heard he’s just as good as Eminem. Why aint he as big as Eminem? Because he Black. Ain’t none of the sh*t hard to figure out.”
“Eminem gets a top spot because he’s White,” Mel added. “It has something to do with it. Whether he’d be higher or lower…Still, you can’t take that out of the equation. If he was a Black rapper, he wouldn’t even make the list, probably.”
On Friday (March 3), TAOD released its latest episode with Melle Mel. Continuing on the topic, Mel said he didn’t think Lil Wayne was worthy of the No. 1 ranking Wayne thinks he deserves on Billboard and Vibe‘s list due to the fact that the New Orleans rapper uses Auto-tune.
“You don’t even know his real voice,” Melle Mel stated. “If his voice is on Auto-tune, was it something wrong with his voice for them to put the Auto-tune on his voice? Or was it something they did in the studio just to give it that rawness?”
Melle Mel has discredited Eminem previously. Back in 2017, he threw shots at Em and Jay-Z.
