Eminem vs. Agent Orange: A True American Horror Story By Shelah Moody

Eminem vs. Agent Orange: A True American Horror Story
By Shelah Moody
Call it the Trumpapocalypse.
From August 25 to September 3, Hurricane Harvey ripped through Texas, Louisiana, Belize, Nicaragua, and Honduras, causing 77 deaths and leaving thousands displaced in its wake.
September 16 to October 3-Hurricane Maria became known as the worst natural disaster on record in Dominica, causing catastrophic damage and a major humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico; estimated death toll:  90.
On the night of October 1, a lone gunman opened fire from his Mandalay Bay hotel room after knocking out the windows and rained down a hail of bullets on revelers  at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas strip, leaving 58 people dead and 489 injured.
        Last week, a series of wildfires burning across the northern California, raging throughout Napa, Lake, Sonoma, Mendocino, Butte and Solano counties, destroyed homes and property and killed 32 people; hundreds are reported missing. 
Welcome to the terrordome!
With such violent endings and beginnings of summer and fall, it seems like America barely had time to recover from one large-scale tragedy when another struck. It is safe to say that we all suffered from PTSD in one form or another since Donald Trump was elected U.S. president number 45 almost a year ago.
Enough is enough, said Marshall Mathers, a.k.a., Eminem, a white rapper from Detroit. On Oct. 11, the Grammy-winning hip hop artist unleashed his fury on the right wing Donald Trump administration via a cypher which made its televised debut at the 2017 BET Hip Hop Awards. https://www.bet.com/video/hiphopawards/2017/cyphers/eminem-vs-Donald-Trump-hha17.html.
“It’s the calm before the storm right here,” Eminem freestyles, while strolling through an underground parking garage as a group of young black men look on. “Wait, how was I gonna start this off? I forgot. Oh yeah. That’s an awfully hot coffee pot, should I drop it on Donald Trump? Probably not, but that’s all I got, ‘til I come up with a solid (expletive).”
Dressed in a basic black hoodie and gold chain, Eminem takes a few steps and a deep breath and then delivers the second blow.
“I got a plan and now I gotta hatch it like a damn Apache with a tomahawk, Ima walk inside a mosque on Ramadan and say a prayer that every time that (expletive) talks, aggh! !! Ima stop. But we better give Obama props cause what we got in office now’s a kamikaze that will probably cause a nuclear holocaust and while the drama pops and he waits for shit to quiet down, he’ll just gas his plane up and fly around till the bombing stops...”
Eminem, who achieved mainstream popularity via the Dr. Dre and Aftermath Entertainment produced “Slim Shady” LP in 1999, is no stranger to controversy. Several years back, he came under fire for perceived homophobic and misogynistic lyrics and redeemed himself via duet with Elton John on the televised 43rd annual Grammy Awards ceremony at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.  Currently, Eminem is rumored to have a host of Trump supporters as fans, but he and his alter ego, Slim Shady, left no strings untied during his rant and made it clear who’s side they are on.
“The fact we’re not afraid of Trump, F— walkin’ on eggshells, I came to stomp, That’s why he keeps screamin’ ‘Drain the swamp’, ‘Cause he’s in quicksand, It’s like we take a step forward, then backwards, But this is his form of distraction, plus, he gets an enormous reaction when he attacks the NFL so we focus on that instead of talking Puerto Rico or gun reform for Nevada; All these horrible tragedies and he’s bored and would rather cause a Twitter storm with the Packers; then says he wants to lower our taxes; Then who’s gonna pay for his extravagant trips back and forth with his fam to his golf resorts and his mansions? Same s— that he tormented Hillary for and he slandered, then does it more from his endorsement of Bannon, Support for the Klansmen….”
Following the BET HIP Hop Awards, the Eminem anti-Trump cypher became the number one trending video on YouTube was the subject of more than two million tweets; it was also the subject of morning talk shows on CNN, ABC and other major networks. Eminem’s contemporaries tweeted their reactions, the most vivid coming from Snoop Dogg via video: “Detroit! Stand up!  Eminem! Real Muthaf_____ nigga!”
Whether you love it or you hate it, in this writer’s opinion, Eminem should be commended because at least he took a stand. Whether you thought his verse was dope or whack, at least he said something. At press time, Trump, aka Agent Orange, has not responded on his favorite platform, the Twittosphere.
Eminem is not the only pop culture artist taking shots at the Trump administration.  Season 7 of Ryan Murphy’s “American Horror Story: Cult” (my fav. guilty pleasure) http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/american-horror-storycenters around how fear mongering and mayhem have gripped a small midwestern town, similar to the one the rapper grew up in, following the November, 2016 election.
Listen to Eminem on Big Hop Radio! www.streetwisesd.com/radio