From Eminem’s “Gnat”, just released, video and all, in his latest surprise-dropped album:
Ain’t nothin’ you say can ever trump mic, pencil – get killed
If you’re hypersensitive, I wasn’t referencin’ the vice president, chill
I mean my penmanship at times tends to get ill, violence but with skill
That’s why I hence when I write ends up with the mic and pencil gettin’ killed
Let’s break that down.
Seeing the lyrics written out gives it away. Hearing it is a very different story. Listen to it without reading the lyrics. This is about the sounds, and about homynums, and how words can be used to say two very different things but sound exactly the same.
The first line: When he talks about the microphone (“mic”) and his “pencil”, it sounds exactly like he’s saying “Mike Pence’ll get killed” (coming right after the word “trump” – not referring to the public menace in the White House, but the “trump card” meaning of the word). So when you see the lyrics written out, it looks like he’s talking about how nothing you can say will trump his skill with the pen and the mic. But it SOUNDS like he’s saying the Vice President is about to be killed. (No wonder the Secret Service paid a call to Eminem after his “Fuck Trump” BET cypher in 2017,. They wanted to ascertain whether or not Eminem was an actual threat to 45. (lol.)
In the next line he says, to his critics, “I wasn’t referencing Pence, chill” and then he backtracks: he’s talking about his “penmanship” (i.e. his songwriting), and it is only then you realize that in the first line he didn’t say “Mike Pence’ll get killed” at all.
The way he put this little sequence together is a camouflage. It literally sounds like he’s saying “Mike Pence’ll get killed” when he’s actually saying “mic pencil get killed”. He closes it up in the last line of this little section with “mic and pencil gettin’ killed” – which STILL sounds like “Mike Pence’ll get killed.”
So: he has just said he’s not referring to Pence – and yet he keeps saying his name, or what SOUNDS like his name, in connection with violent imagery of murder.
Plausible deniability. When the Secret Service show up AGAIN at his house, he can say, “I didn’t even mention Mike Pence. I was talking about a microphone and a pencil the whole time. Not my fault it sounds the same.”
Eminem has gone next level with the whole homonym thing. Sometimes it’s corny. less is most definitely more. Sometimes it’s super clever, like here.
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