EMINEM has drawn a line under his feuds with other rappers, talking about one of the highlights of his new album ‘ENCORE’.
The track ‘Like Toy Soldiers’ – which samples Martika – sees the rapper attempt to walk away from the escalating cycle of bitterness and violence resulting from high profile public spats.
Now, Em has explained the thinking behind the track to MTV. He said: “When I say ‘toy soldiers’, the phrase, it’s symbolic of all of us in the rap game just being pawns almost, it feels like. A lot of times when rappers have beef, their sales incline. So meanwhile, big record labels and heads of record labels, they benefit off this. They go home at night and they can sleep. They can rest their heads, and they can rest easy knowing that they are selling records. Meanwhile, we’re really out here.
“We’re out here, and when we’re not out here, some of our people are out here. Usually, nine times out of ten, somebody out of somebody’s entourage meets up with someone from somebody else’s entourage. Usually, the innocent people that really ain’t got much to do with it – besides affiliation – end up getting hurt or killed. So (the song ‘Like Toy Soldiers’) was, metaphorically speaking, my way of saying, ‘before this goes any further, I’m done with it’.”
The song specifically references spats with Ray Benzino of hip-hop magazine The Source as well as Ja Rule and the Murder Inc family.
‘Like Toy Soldiers’ appears on Eminem’s fourth solo album ‘Encore’, which went to Number One in the UK yesterday (November 14) after being rush-released on Friday following an Internet leak.