What: A live performance from the iHeart Music Awards, with a bit of activism sprinkled in.
Who: Eminem and Kehlani
Why we care: Last fall, Eminem emerged from seeming retirement to deliver his best performance in at least 15 years. It was a blistering freestyle screed against Donald Trump, delivered with ninja-like verbal dexterity in a weird garage for some reason. It went instantly viral, suffered an expected backlash, and The Roots’ Black Thought did a freestyle on Funkmaster Flex’s show not too long after that made many hip-hop heads forget Eminem’s had ever happened. Eminem, for his part, also squandered his own momentum by releasing a new album that was received tepidly at best. However, over this past weekend, Eminem unleashed round two of his politically charged freestyles that, once again, has people talking.
Eminem appeared at Sunday’s iHeart Music Awards to perform “Nowhere Fast,” a song from his new album. Although the song already features allusions to terrorism, Eminem customized it for the occasion. After an introduction by Big Sean and Parkland survivor Alex Moscou–sporting a March for Life T-shirt–Eminem kicked off his performance with a verse targeting the NRA specifically:
Sometimes I don’t know what this world has come to, it’s blowing up
This whole country is going nuts
And the NRA is in our way
They’re responsible for this whole production
They hold the strings, they control the puppets
And they threaten to take away donor bucks so they know the government won’t do nothing
And nobody’s punching, gun owners clutching their loaded weapon
They love their guns more than our children.
Watch the entire performance below.
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