Popdust

Nobody Asked for Eminem's Surprise Oscars Performance

The rapper performed his hit "Lose Yourself," which won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2003.

Photo by Madison McGaw/BFA/Shutterstock

Considering what many considered to be an overwhelmingly white and male nominee pool, the 92nd Annual Academy Awards ended up being...not that bad?

Korean thriller Parasite made history by becoming the first foreign language film to take home an Oscar for Best Picture, and its director Bong Joon Ho was adorable on numerous occasions. Joaquin Phoenix, after being named Best Lead Actor, continued his streak of spicy acceptance speeches with a condemnation of the animal agriculture industry. Janelle Monáe's opening number saluted snubbed films like Us and Midsommar. Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph were, well, just as funny as you'd expect.

But there was one appearance at the Oscars that had many attendees and viewers perplexed. At the end of a montage celebrating iconic songs made famous by movies, clips of 8 Mile were projected on the screen as the instantly recognizable chug of "Lose Yourself" played along. And then—for reasons widely unbeknownst to the audience—Eminem himself appeared onstage to perform the 2002 No. 1 hit.

While some audience members in the Dolby Theatre happily rapped along, many seemed dumbfounded by Eminem's seemingly random appearance.

— (@)

"Lose Yourself" became the first rap number to win the Oscar for Best Original Song back in 2003, but Eminem didn't attend that year because he didn't think he had a chance of winning. Although the reason for his delayed appearance is unclear, it seems Eminem just figured he was better late than never: "Look, if you had another shot, another opportunity... Thanks for having me @TheAcademy," he tweeted. "Sorry it took me 18 years to get here."

We're glad Slim Shady finally got his second shot, but why 18 years late? At this point, it feels like a pathetic and haphazard promotion of his eleventh studio album, Music to Be Murdered By, which received backlash for its audacious reference to the bombing at Ariana Grande's 2017 Manchester concert. A clip of old audio also recently resurfaced in which Eminem claimed he'd "side with Chris Brown" on the issue of Brown's infamous assault of Rihanna. Why are we continuing to bait Eminem's constant hunger for relevancy?

These audience reactions say it best:

— (@)

From Your Site Articles

I Won't Touch Cs Bn's "Indigo" Album, So Here's My Perfectly Generic Review

Cs Bn is an abuser and I refuse to listen to his album. This is my review.

While we're still vocally holding other predatory celebrities to task for all the awful stuff they've done, we're also dropping everything to listen to notorious abuser Cs Bn's newest album.

Megastars like Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, and Drake lined up to collaborate, because we're apparently all fine with a guy beating the s**t out of his girlfriend, as long as he's also involved in an active rape case overseas. Sorry, Freudian slip. I meant as long as we like his music.

Well I won't support it. I won't touch C***s B***n's dumb Indigo album with a ten-foot pole. I'm still going to review it. I'm just not going to listen to it first.

That's basically the nature of music reviews, anyway. Someone half-listens to an album right after it drops and then frantically scribbles 300 words about their first impressions under the guise of expertise. I'm saving myself half an hour, tops. Besides, you don't actually care what any reviewer says––you don't know them, you don't share their tastes, and you just want them to agree with you so you can feel validated or disagree so you can get mad.

So upfront, here are my tastes: I greatly enjoy Broadway musicals, and nothing will ever top Les Miserables: The Dream Cast in Concert from 1995 starring Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean opposite Philip Quast as Javert. The last thing I listened to was this two hour "Most Epic Anime Mix," which is truly indicative of a lot about me. I'm not a fan of Kanye West as a person, but yes, I think his music is phenomenal.

Now that we have all that out of the way, here are my thoughts on C***s B***n's Indigo, which again, I have not and will never listen to:

The first track of Indigo kicks things off with some major audio. The sound designer definitely knows how to lay down a beat, and I found the beat to be both consistent and fitting for the lyrics. The lyrics themselves spoke to me in the literal sense that someone was speaking lyrics and I was listening to them. The voice was on pitch, or maybe it wasn't. (Who cares? C***s B***n is an abuser.)

I thought it was very interesting how that one song sampled that other song. The song it sampled was a song I recognized but haven't actively listened to since I was younger. Now, every time I hear this new song, it brings up memories of the old song, which may or may not be a positive experience. I do think the sample works for this track, but it's also a little lazy, and I'm not sure whether or not I feel comfortable calling it transformative––at least, not enough to warrant hearing this old song on the airwaves again. (Remember when C***s B***n pleaded guilty to felony assault for beating Rihanna?)

Another major part of the album was all the featured artists on so many of the tracks. If I'm being perfectly honest, some of them were a lot better than others. The featured artist I already liked did a really killer job! His/her/their verse was straight fire, and stole the whole track away from abuser C***s B***n. The featured artist I liked least, on the other hand, dropped a lazy verse that sounded like he/she/they were totally phoning it in. It sounded bad to me, and I did not like it a single bit. (I almost liked it less than I do abuser C***s B***n.)

Ultimately, while this album has its ups and downs––some parts are certainly musically stronger than other parts––nobody can deny that this album is something you are technically capable of listening to (unless, of course, you're deaf). My suggestion would be to avoid it entirely, because C***s B***n is a giant piece of human fecal matter, but should you choose to listen, go in with low expectations. You just may be surprised, or maybe not. Either way, the UK had the right idea when they banned C***s B***n from entering their country.