From a Revolution Club Member:

Eminem, the Toxic Diss Culture—and
the Diss Tracks We DO Need

September 13, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

I found myself getting hyped over the response tracks to Eminem’s surprise drop with his new album Kamikaze a few days ago. The album is all full of disses against other rappers, including of Machine Gun Kelly, a rapper from Cleveland. While listening to Machine Gun Kelly’s quick response to Eminem’s diss of him on WorldStarHipHop, seeing the nod to Kathy Griffin’s criticism of Trump, getting psyched and asking people if they had heard it yet, I had to stop for a moment and think about the point of this. As much as the quick lines, the criticisms of new rappers and the beats bump, it’s only reinforcing the big bad macho rapper shit that honestly draws me in as much as it repels me from the scene. The whole sanctity of “my daughter,” dissing mothers, calling people “cunts,” “sissies,” “bitches” and “faggots” (words that are clearly homophobic and women-hating that Eminem keeps using despite being checked repeatedly on it), promoting the whole “if you disrespect me or mine, I will kill you” logic on and on and on.

HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution points out, “While many people will do positive things in opposing the crimes of this system, we need to approach everything—evaluate every political program and every organized force in society, every kind of culture, values and ways of treating people—according to how it relates to the revolution we need, to end all oppression. We should unite with people whenever we can, and struggle with them whenever we need to, to advance the revolution.”

Eminem has been one of far too few people, with such a big platform, to openly call out the Trump/Pence Regime. It was awesome hearing his freestyle ripping into Trump last October and setting a great example for how people should be acting artistically. Filled with the real hate against this fascist and real threats of nuclear war, Trump’s disdain for humanity and in particular Black people, Puerto Rico, the NFL players who took a knee, and more, even drawing a line for his fans. Now of course he isn’t a communist, he thinks we should respect the military for protecting this country and their “hard work.” But his main point in the end—“We fucking HATE TRUMP”—and praising people standing up against hate was righteous. We should continue to struggle with people like him on the highly problematic views he has on gay people and women through making it a question in all of society if we are going to fight for and fight to take up the world vision embodied in the “Points of Attention for the Revolution” and the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, of a world where all are emancipated and this system of profitability and exploitation is defeated through revolution.

All that said, the Diss culture is Toxic. If it remains in the realm it has been, it only perpetuates the logic of a system that is bombing people regularly in the Middle East including hospitals and school buses. The type of Diss tracks we do need, if any, are against this system, their enforcers and everything embodied in the ideas and social relations. Want a great model to figure out how to make the kind of Diss tracks we need? Bob Avakian, the architect of the new synthesis of communism and leader of this revolution, dropped one a few years ago: All Played Out. Where he nails, layer by layer, the putridness of the system and its society we live in today, calling on people to see and proclaim it’s “All Played Out!” The track is not only thorough but artistically fresh and flowing from a worldview where humanity’s chains are broken.