[FlavorWire.com Review: Is “Rap God” the Last Gasp for Eminem’s “Rage and Youthful Exuberance”?]
The first rule of relevance is: you don’t talk about relevance. And you certainly don’t release a single talking about how relevant you are (especially if its immediate predecessor sounded like it was made in 1988). Oh, Eminem — how did it come to this? 2013 is the year of the hip-hop midlife crisis, but even so, there’s something particularly unedifying about “Rap God,” Eminem’s new single, wherein he spends six minutes and a lot of words talking about the fact that he is still, yes, a rap god.
Sure, Eminem can still rap, but then, was that ever in doubt? His verses on “Rap God” are impressively tongue-twisting, and at times jaw-droppingly dextrous — the bit at about 4:25 when he unleashes a crazy, apparently breathless, stream of lyrics is the sort of thing that makes you stop and rewind a few times to work out what on earth he’s on about. But this show of virtuosity is like watching Yngwie Malmsteen or Steve Vai letting rip with an intimidatingly complex guitar solo. Very few others can rap like this, or play like that. But if technical skill equated to cultural relevance, Jeff Beck would have been a superstar.
http://flavorwire.com/420280/is-rap-god-the-last-gasp-for-eminems-rage-and-youthful-exuberance/
