Rapper Eminem discusses his new album with Sway (Photo: YouTube)
Eminem has suggested he regrets using a homophobic slur in a track on his surprise album Kamikaze. The rapper faced widespread condemnation from the music industry and the LGBTI community.
In an interview with Sway this week, Eminem said: ‘I think the word that I called him on that song was one of the things where I felt like this might be too far’.
On the track Fall, which features Justin Vernon, he raps: ‘I see why you called yourself a faggot, bitch’ in reference to Tyler the Creator.
‘In my quest to hurt him, I realize that I was hurting a lot of other people by saying it,’ he explained. ‘It was one of the things that I kept going back to and going ‘I don’t feel right with this’.
‘I wasn’t in the right mind frame. I was angry’ the rapper said.
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Backlash
Justin Vernon had distanced himself from the track. ‘Not a fan of this message, it’s tired’ he wrote on Twitter.
Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds criticized Eminem. ‘It’s never ok to say a word that is filled with hate’ he said.
Fans also took to social media to decry the outburst. This isn’t the first time Eminem has received flack for being homophobic.
His 2000 album Marshall Mathers LP garnered similar criticism for frequent use of the word ‘fag’. In 2013, he also released a song containing the word
In the Sway interview, Eminem said he had attacked Tyler and Earl Sweatshirt after they criticized him on social media.
Tyler criticized the track Walk on Water on Eminem’s 2017 album, Revival: ‘dear god this is horrible sheesh how the fuck’.
On Tyler the Creator’s last album he hints several times that he might be gay or bisexual.