(AllHipHop News) It has been two years since Royce Da 5’9″ released his critically-acclaimed album Book of Ryan. The Detroit lyricist is back with a brand new body of work titled The Allegory.
The new LP includes over a dozen guests such as Kxng Crooked, DJ Premier, Westside Gunn, Conway The Machine, Benny The Butcher, T.I., and Vince Staples. Veteran comedian Cedric The Entertainer also shows up on “Dope Man. Royce’s Bad Meets Evil partner Eminem is featured on the project too.
On “Perspective (Skit),” Eminem discusses the erasure of Black artists throughout history and racial representation in the media. Em mentions how Black people have created “damn near every form of music,” and he points out how Elvis Presley was crowned the “King of Rock & Roll” despite earlier contributions to the genre from Black performers such as Chuck Berry and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Eminem states:
But you’ve got people of all races like coming together and helping shape this from the ground up
So now you got little White kids growing up with Black idols
And you got Black kids growig’ up with White idols
And you got- it’s just this whole mixing pot
Nothing has brought more races and more people from all different walks of life together than Hip Hop
No music has done that, I don’t think anything has done that as much as Hip Hop has
So, in the same token, I can understand the frustration being that damn near every form of music, period, was created by Black people
So, you got Chuck Berry, you got Rosetta Tharpe
And Rock & Roll is starting to get some attention, but then along comes Elvis
And people are acting like, “Oh my God, I’ve never seen this before.”
You’ve seen it before, but you might not have seen a White person do it to this level
So now, he sells the most records and people are calling him the “King of Rock & Roll”, right?
But, on the flip side of the coin, if I’m a Black kid, growing up in, let’s say the 60s, 70s, 80s, whatever, right?
And I’m looking on TV and nobody looks like me and it’s very stereotypical and I’m looking at f*cking…
I’m lookin’ at toys and everything is White, the f*cking action figures are all White
The f*cking superheroes are all White
Like maybe there’s one or two Black superheroes mixed in there with mostly White
I don’t know how I’d grow up and not have a chip on my shoulder
On the other flip side of that coin
We don’t get to choose our parents, we don’t get to choose what color we’re born
It’s more about, at that point it, becomes, “You’re born here, you are what color you are, you’re what nationality you are.”
And it’s what you do with it, right?
To make a difference
This is not the first time Eminem has referenced Elvis as a White man that took many elements of his artistry from African-Americans. He rapped on “Without Me” in 2002, “I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley to do black music so selfishly and use it to get myself wealthy.”
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