I finished my workout as usual this morning, and as I opened the Gideons’ NKJV Bible I have in my room (as they’re placed in so many other hotel rooms around the world), I was initially wanting to read Psalm 116, but for some reason, I considered the one before it:
Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!
Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”
Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk;
and they do not make a sound in their throat.
Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.
O Israel, trust in the LORD! He is their help and their shield.
O house of Aaron, trust in the LORD! He is their help and their shield.
You who fear the LORD, trust in the LORD! He is their help and their shield.
The LORD has remembered us; he will bless us; he will bless the house of Israel;
he will bless the house of Aaron; he will bless those who fear the LORD, both the small and the great.
May the LORD give you increase, you and your children!
May you be blessed by the LORD, who made heaven and earth!
The heavens are the LORD’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man.
The dead do not praise the LORD, nor do any who go down into silence.
But we will bless the LORD from this time forth and forevermore.
Praise the LORD!
Psalm 115
I wouldn’t say this was timely according to my expectations, but I do appreciate this Scripture today.
YouTube has been recommending a lot of EZ Mil lately – if you don’t know who that is, he’s a Filipino artist – I was going to say he’s a rapper, but he’s so much more than that – Let’s just say that he ventures into more genres, not just hip-hop.
It must have been a YouTube short or an Instagram reel where I heard a small part of his composition, Panalo, where he mentions that he isn’t ’tisoy’, but with rage and passion he proclaims, ‘I’m Pinoy!’; At the time I dismissed all of that because I thought, here’s just another artist with Filipino blood that my fellow countrymen would give so much attention to one-time big-time; I put him in the same boat as Rob Schneider, Apl.de.Ap, Mark Dacascos, Jokoy, and so on and so forth.
Then I see that post – You know the one, where this same kid posed with a childhood hero (or a great influence to me, at the very least) – Eminem, and of course, Dr. Dre. Slim Shady signed EZ Mil on, and needless to say I was excited to see what creations and collaborations they would make.
I’d say around a week after I saw that post, they came out with the track, Realest. EZ Mil did his thing, and I have to say, this kid really is of international caliber. Not drawing on ‘Pinoy’ energy, he rapped just as good, if not better than most folks of his generation – at least, that’s my opinion. Also my opinion – he was a perfect introduction, or a perfect match, to the great Eminem, who closed the second half of the track.
Speaking of Eminem – now there’s someone who proved and also communicated that he was of international caliber. Part of his flow was a response to another rapper The Game, who apparently ‘dissed’ him by saying that you don’t hear anything by Eminem being played ‘in the club’; To The Game, Eminem responded that the music he creates is more for stadiums, and the only reason why The Game is saying what he says is because he’s the one still performing in clubs.
But I type all of this lead-up only to mention this next part. Another part of Eminem’s portion in Realest was his response to Melle Mel. Apparently this Melle Mel guy was one of the pioneers of rap music, and is deserving of respect and all that… the only problem is, he said that the only reason why Eminem is one of the Top 5 rappers (of some rating here or there, not sure)… was because he was white.
Needless to say, he suffered the consequences. I spent more time on YouTube just watching other content creators and their video responses to Realest, and around 95% of the people I saw were of the inclination that Slim Shady absolutely destroyed the so-called legend. Off the top of my head, he responded saying that his skin color was working against him, but this was something that he was already used to – shades of his equally legendary rap battles in 8Mile… and as an attack to Melle Mel, all he said was something in the lines of, we lost him to steroids.
Most of the people I listened to online sort of agreed those few lines were enough – just like his responses to MGK, Benzino, and Ja Rule were enough for them to question their career choices.
Unfortunately, this legend (and really, I haven’t heard of him till this debacle) thought it was a good idea to respond to Eminem – with a track a little more than a minute long. I mean, looking at that duration, you’d think that it would be a solid punch right back at Slim Shady, right? Well, the issue here was – actually, there were a lot of issues, but I’ll share the most prominent two reasons why most content creators on YouTube absolutely bashed his ‘response’.
First, upon listening to the audio track, it’s like he pulled it out of the days when he was prominent, apparently back in the 80’s. One comment stated that there was improvement in his choice of audio and mixing – ‘from 1984 to 1987’. The music was too loud, and each bar Melle Mel spat out was backed up with a gunshot track.
Second, his choice of words were pretty… basic? One YouTuber commented that it sounded like he just put whatever words together and called them a diss. And then, as if to insult even the casual fan’s intelligence, he wasted a bar by rhyming ‘mistake’ by counting from 1 to 8. I mean, even I knew to shake my head at that.
People went ahead and said, it’s sad. They all respected Melle Mel, and I suppose we should, but in the same respect they called him out, saying that this response was just… bad. They went as far as saying that he probably should question the friends he has because if they really were friends they wouldn’t have let him react the way he did. Some people didn’t believe it was his composition, and thought it was AI-Generated.
And my take on the matter? Well, I know absolutely nothing when it comes to hip-hop and rap, but I know enough to tell when someone holds on to their ‘glory days’ a little too much: I see in Melle Mel some behaviors in common with other folks closer to home with the same… issue.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk;
and they do not make a sound in their throat.
Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.
People who make an idol of their glorious pasts seem to see no need to evolve – Just as we heard the response diss literally sounding like it came from a different time and a different era. In fact, a more, say, ‘rational’ content creator reminded everyone in his response that the focus back in the day was not the choice of words or delivery, but the ‘volume’ of the artist. That’s why Melle Mel sounded the way he did, and considering that reminder, I’d have to agree that sure, his performance, even that minute long diss track, was legendary… for his time, at least. It felt like in his mind, his time was still the best time, even if what’s considered the ‘best’ today is far different from back then.
People who make an idol of their glorious pasts also seem to bash on the prominent artists of today – and I believe that’s what brought this legend to hate on Eminem – Too proud to say he was threatened by this younger man’s success, and too reckless to blame his skin color.
I’m not saying that we should totally disregard our past. The Old Testament has a lot of lessons for us to learn from the light of the New Covenant. Our mistakes (or the mistakes of others) are the springboard for our doing right (or for others doing right) today. But just like any other idol, if you put them in a pedestal where God alone deserves to be, then, well, you end up wanting, and even worse, you drag yourself and others down.
O Israel, trust in the LORD! He is their help and their shield.
O house of Aaron, trust in the LORD! He is their help and their shield.
You who fear the LORD, trust in the LORD! He is their help and their shield.
The LORD has remembered us; he will bless us; he will bless the house of Israel;
he will bless the house of Aaron; he will bless those who fear the LORD, both the small and the great.
If we would really honor our past, or if we would value something else or somebody else, then put them in their rightful place – That is, second to God, the Creator of all things. Our primary trust ought to be in God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; That is, we trust in God to help us – Yes, if there’s anything we need to do, He will help us. If there’s anything we want to do, we lift it up to Him, and we trust in Him to help us. In the times that we think we have everything figured out, still, we acknowledge Him, and He will help us. Same thing when we have absolutely no idea what to do – Let us trust in the Lord FIRST, and He will help us.
We trust in God. We seek God first, to help us. And we trust in God, by way of depending on Him to be a shield to us. If anything happens to us, we trust in Him. If anyone does anything to us, we trust in Him. If we don’t know what’s happening around us, we trust in Him.
And here’s the beautiful thing – as we continue to trust in Him, things get put in their place naturally. We adjust to the times – As Christ continually adjusts to us, so we are able to adjust and minister accordingly to our ever-changing communities. In the context of glorifying the past, we actually honor the past even more – not by insisting that people conform to the old, but acknowledge the old while moving according to the new. I think that if Melle Mel made an intentional effort to rhyme and flow according to the times, instead of blasting us with the past, then the community would have appreciated his efforts even more. I mean, Eminem himself had respect for these pioneers! And that leads to my second observation – as we continue to trust in Him, and as things are put in their place, we would actually appreciate when people get better than us.
I dunno, I’m writing all this – not to hate on Melle Mel, or anyone else for that matter – but I suppose it’s all just to say that if we put God in His rightful place, and if we allow Him to put everything else in its rightful place… then we’d be in a good place, ourselves.
To EZ Mil, to Melle Mel, to Eminem, and to everyone else:
May the LORD give you increase, you and your children!
May you be blessed by the LORD, who made heaven and earth!
The heavens are the LORD’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man.
The dead do not praise the LORD, nor do any who go down into silence.
But we will bless the LORD from this time forth and forevermore.
Praise the LORD!
Until the next post, God bless you.
JB's Personal Brain Defragmenter 
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