Eminem Shrugs Off TikTok Cancellation Campaign in Animated “Tone Deaf” Video
The rapper responds to his latest cancellation attempt in a new video for a selection from Music to Be Murdered By: Side B.
Eminem is in the crosshairs of TikTok’s latest cancellation campaign. But instead of relying on his legion of millennial fans to offer some form of support, the historically problematic rapper has come to his own defense in a new visual treatment.
Released yesterday, the animated video for “Tone Deaf,” a song from his 2020 album, Music to Be Murdered By: Side B, recounts the innumerable attempts to silence the Detroit MC throughout his career. In the cartoon clip, Eminem goes head-to-head with the array of “alter-egos” he’s come up with over the last 25 years, while Marshall Mathers remains untouched by the outrage he’s drummed up, tucked into a trophy room with a pen, pad, and all of his awards. Sharing a snippet of the video on Twitter, the rapper quoted the song’s chorus in a more-or-less direct response to the cancellation effort (see below.)
As HotNewHipHop points out, the campaign was launched earlier this week by a group of Gen Z TikTok users taking issue with a line from a Rihanna collaboration circa 2010. In Recovery’s “Love The Way You Lie,” the rapper caps his second verse with “If she ever tries to fucking leave again/I’mma tie her to the bed and set this house on fire.“ Older Eminem fans (likely only just learning of the social media platform,) fired back — some with memes, others with half-baked homegrown raps — to defend the rapper, mostly pointing out how many times he’d been subject to this type of scrutiny and how little of an effect these critiques have had over the years.
Watch Eminem’s new animated video for “Tone Deaf” below.
“I won’t stop even when my hair turns grey (I’m tone-deaf) / ‘Cause they won’t stop until they cancel me” #ToneDeaf lyric video up on my channel- https://t.co/kd4Iw5j9TI pic.twitter.com/nw1Q2eUyzN
— Marshall Mathers (@Eminem) March 5, 2021