Eminem takes shots at Megan Thee Stallion and more in “Houdini” video

Shady’s back, but it would probably be better if he wasn’t. Eminem’s newest single, “Houdini”—the first from his forthcoming 12th studio album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce)—is a cringy screed against what he probably calls “wokeism” that definitely should have stayed asleep.

Apart from not even being the best song called “Houdini” this year, Eminem’s single includes some lines that you really do need to see to believe. “My transgender cat’s Siamese/Identifies as black, but acts Chinese,” he raps at one point. “Sometimes I wonder what the old me’d say/If he could see the way shit is today (Look at this shit man)/He’d probably say that everything is gay,” he raps in another, before whispering, “Like happy.” Apart from the obvious eyeroll content here, it’s also just goofily amateurish writing. But that seems to be the point. “But fuck that if I think that shit, I’ma say that shit/Cancel me what? Okay that’s it,” he wrote. Well, he certainly did say it.

But while taking shots at himself (and his kids, who he calls “brats”) is Eminem’s business, becoming yet another rapper to turn Megan Thee Stallion’s shooting at the hands of Tory Lanez into a cheap joke is not. “If I was to ask for Megan Thee Stallion if she would collab with me/Would I really have a shot at a feat?” he raps, over a caption in the video highlighting the icky attempt at a pun. Eminem isn’t the first rapper to make light of this incredibly traumatic event—Drake did it on his Her Loss track, “Circo Loco,” and Nicki Minaj wrote an entire song about it, which she unsubtly titled “Big Foot,” kicking off the two artist’s beef earlier this year. Hopefully, he’ll be the last.

At least it might be easy to miss the Megan lyric in the sea of everything else going on in this video, from the R. Kelly reference (“Bumpin’ R. Kelly’s favorite group the black guy pees”) to the cameos from stars like Pete Davidson, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, and Shane Gillis. (Of course Shane Gillis is here.) The video is styled as a comic book adaptation with Eminem taking on his Rap Boy persona to square off against a blonde, 2002 version of himself. If you are in the mood to watch a blonde superhero fight the woke mob, we’d honestly recommend revisiting season 3 of The Boys instead.