Pulling Rank: How Machine Gun Kelly’s Animus Against Eminem Exemplifies White Hatred Listed from a Verbal Assault to Possible Reconciliation

Epistemology is one of the two main prongs of Ayn Rand’s groundbreaking philosophy that consists of five branches where fresh thinking resonates the most. The other is with ethics. But it is reason that permits the individual to think about the idea of selfishness. The former comes before the other. It expands the thinking capacity of someone and never fails. The individuals may deviate from the rational faculty but reason still stands.

The achievement of reason takes a good amount of work on the perceiver to conceptualize. From the levels of taking something in through the senses and then allowing that to synthesize and produce reason has allowed man to come up from the muck and walk erect. The knowledge that man has acquired is a testament to his ability to discern what is good for him, what makes him possible to live.

In the realm of Hip Hop, reason hardly is on the frame of mind of most rappers. Emotion and unreason usually cloud the minds of such artists. Thinking takes, usually, a backseat to feeling and empty talk. Sadly, sometimes in this genre, the act of the initiation of physical force has sometimes undermined any advances toward rational thought. Marshall “Eminem/Slim Shady” Mathers and his diss track "Not Alike" against various artists in the Rap realm has sparked one of the first and so far the best response to his disrespectful, verbal barbs. Richard Colson Baker best known as Machine Gun Kelly or MGK has put out a blistering track to battle against Mathers called, “Rap Devil.” It is a clear response the title of another track that rose ire, Mather’s “Rap God.”

Much talk has been said about black-on-black crime. What few people discuss is white-on-white hate. This version of hate has roots that stretch back to some of the earliest stages of man. White hatred against another white person is replete with the fact that the man who runs the world can attack his own skin color. Of course this is all idiotic as human beings ought to meet each other, trade, and consider one another worthy of each other’s time. Yellow-on-yellow hate or red-on-red hate or whatever version of hatred that has arisen over the years cannot compare to white hatred. So, grab your headphones and favorite streaming service for Pulling Rank: How Machine Gun Kelly’s Animus Against Eminem Exemplifies White Hatred from a Verbal Assault to Possible Reconciliation

Baker goes hard in the paint.

Every line of the record that Baker created is poignant, pointed, and direct. In four verses, choruses, and a bridge Baker excoriates Mathers. From the line, “‘I think my dad’s gone crazy’ yeah Hailie you right” this is a serious battle. Baker has known that whenever a rapper mentions Mather’s offspring, his one and only daughter, he has become belligerent and emotional.

To know that Mathers would be inflamed by these caustic lines, Baker recorded this song to fan the flames. The onslaught of oral bombs dropped from Baker’s mouth as he says, “Let's talk about the fact you actually blacked balled a rapper that's twice as young as you (Let's talk about it)” referring to the action that Mathers took after Baker took yet another shot at his daughter and the Mathers banished Baker from ever appearing on his satellite radio station, Shade 45. What this all means is the fact that a 22-year-old Baker made statements that were untoward concerning Mathers 16-year-old daughter in 2012. It breaks down as Baker “coming after the kids.” He felt free to turn on the minors to advance his Twitter quotes. What’s wrong with this? He should have waited two years before he ever said a word about Hailie Mathers, if at all.

Fiery speech comes to a raging inferno as Baker retorts,

“Then you went and called Jimmy (Facts)They conference called me in the morning (What?)They told me you mad about a tweetYou wanted me to say sorry (What?)I swear to God I ain't believed him (Nah)Please say it ain't so (No).”

Baker has not cooled from his previous lines about being slighted by Mathers. It feels that he must bring up the fact that he remained unapologetic in his rhetoric. For all the cutting remarks, Baker seems genuinely hurt by the fact that his top ten rapper has leveled a track disparaging him. Such talk stems still from the 2012 tweets. Baker never lets the flamethrower rest as he positions Mathers as a “dweeb” and a “Stan” to himself, referencing the murderous, suicidal main character in Mathers’ monumental single form the The Marshall Mathers LP (2000). What he means is that Mathers should consider just extinguishing himself for all the reckless talk that he has leveled against Baker and other rappers in the Hip Hop universe.

The greatest decision that Baker makes in this song is to spell out all of his claims. He expounds on the fact that both he and Mathers are “single fathers from the Midwest.” This hatred within the framework of art speaks to the inroads that the rap realm has made. It does not appear that the two rappers will come to blows or worse, pick up firearms. The totality of the diss song rests in the fact that Baker took the time to shop for a beat, structure the song, and deliver it in break-neck speed.

Baker does purport hints of using physical force with lines like, “Or we could get gully I'll size up your body and put some white chalk around it.” This of course is not an example of slander. This is just Hip Hop tough talk and nonsense. Baker does not intend, seemingly, to want to end Mather's life. He is being more metaphorical here than anything else. Plenty of rappers through the ages have spurred conflict through means of killing other rappers (then on wax, now with streams).

This hatred should not spill out into the streets. The only things that should be fired are bars of monologue that fit within Hip Hop. Baker discovers even more faults with Mathers with silly, humorous jabs at Mathers' fashion sense and his anger while being one of the wealthiest men in America.

A Measured Approach

Like all great diss songs, there exist moments in the recording where the rapper congratulates the person that they are setting ablaze through lyricism. Baker claims that Mathers is “in everybody’s top ten.” He explains here that he acknowledges the fact that Mathers has cemented his place within the Hip Hop pantheon. He shows respect all the while disregarding him simultaneously. Baker breaks down how Mathers is the “GOAT” (Greatest of All Time) in all of Rapdom. The inflammatory bars seem to be also cooled by the way that Baker weaves his tale about the trevails that he had to go through after his tweets concerning when she was a minor.

Baker seems sincere as he reflects that he would look up to Mathers as another white rapper who made it in a world predominated by blacks and browns. What makes him objective is the fact that he never disrespects Mathers as a man (seriously). He talks mainly of his position in the Rap world. Through all of the trials that Mathers has faced, Baker reminds Mathers and the audience at large that he still respects him as a man and responds negatively to his artistic output. By referencing Recovery (2010) and other works by Mathers, Baker is here making a case that the “The Real Slim Shady” rapper ought to forget about the Rap game altogether. He’s calling for the new blood which Mathers takes shot at in his songs on the Kamikaze (2018) album.

Baker is emphasizing the fact that Mathers has grown old, grown tired, grown soft. Instead of berating the new crop of young people who want their voice to be heard, he should be applauding them for wanting to enter a game that he’s used up and spit out over two decades. Baker appears as a son standing in the shadow of a giant in Mathers. But as he points out, he’s literally taller than Mathers so the line is certainly figurative. He’s endearing, capricious, and flammable throughout the entire song. He takes those shots and makes those jabs about Mathers advancement in age and sliding skills behind the pen and on the microphone. The hatred that he spews is directed at Mathers but one could also surmise that there is a bit of self-hatred involved in the song as well.

An Opportunity for Reconciliation

Given the fact that most rap artists are fickle and can turn on you in a second, the feud between Mathers and Bakers may one day see a peaceful, prosperous end. “They’re both white, they’ll be alright,” the saying goes. But this amount of white hatred reverberates around the genre like the sound of a gong. For both men to see each other eye to eye should not be too far off into the future. In fact, they might even collaborate on a song together. Their battle isn’t beef. What Tupac Shakur and Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace had was beef. What Jeffrey “Ja Rule” Atkins and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson have is beef. These are two white men with a penchant for making diss songs that will receive millions of streams in this digital era. No longer are rappers fighting over a recording and then going out to kill one another, literally. Rappers like the late Jahseh Dwayne Ricardo Onfroy otherwise known as XXXtenacion are being gunned down with no relation to the music that they might have made.

The tiff that Mathers and Baker have means that they should walk away from it with their lives and their self-respect intact. Hip Hop has expanded its reach artistically and commercially over more than four decades. This minor feud is just another page in the growing collection of wannabe MC’s searching for fortune and fame. But is there meaning in all of their bluster and rage? Baker seems to think that Mathers is an exceptional rapper who has somehow lost his way.

With punches at the beard that Mathers has grown, more jest is baked in Baker’s rhetoric than anything else. He wants to, in explicit form, let Mathers know that he has ruffled his feathers but there is a chance for them both to fly together.

At least there is room for this union to occur. Mathers is an older veteran and Baker is still trying to establish himself, though he is a somewhat younger veteran. The possibility for them to get together on a project is more at hand than at any time during this quarrel. What it breaks down as is Baker and Mathers employing reason to settle their differences. It is the only remedy to rectify their relationship, which wasn’t very strong to begin with in this case. The two of them could do shows together throughout the country and the world. They could cut a double album featuring the “Rap God” and the “Rap Devil.” Such possibilities would only arise when reason is fully formed and respected by both parties. The power of epistemology ought to bring these white men to a truce unlike their ancestors of old who fought centuries of wars to claim what king should rule what people.

Now, the dispute between the two rappers ought to awaken the rest of the people that Mathers calls out on record. This could just be a verbal sparring match where the best fighter (through lyrics) wins and goes on to greater things.

Baker and Marshall possess the chance to make good on the promise that the genre of hip hop is for all colors, persuasions, orientations, and any other stupidity that ought not define an individual human being. Their limited amount of reason ought to be fueled to full capacity and shown as a beacon where they both show themselves to be men.