“Nail in the Coffin” by Eminem
“Nail in the Coffin” is bona fide diss track. Eminem uses it to respond primarily to the track “Pull Your Skirt Up” by Benzino as a continuation to their long-running feud.
Eminem replies Benzino’s claim that he owes him because he was featured on Unsigned Hy.pe, an edition of a magazine he co-owns. The rapper states that it is the other way round because he is giving Benzino free publicity by addressing him in this track. He further teases Benzino for being older while telling him to end the beef because he cannot match up to him.
In the subsequent verses, Em retaliates by citing instances where Benzino was begging to be featured on other artist’s tracks and trying to make guest appearances with bigger artists. He even mentions how Benzino is trying to make his son a star and feed off his success because he couldn’t make it big himself. Em then takes a swipe at Benzino for pretending to be a thug when in fact, he has not really done anything tough, unlike him who has been to jail several times. He further teases him for not being rich or talented enough to compete with him, then suggests that Benzino should let go of their beef because his career is virtually over.
“Nail in the Coffin” Facts
Writing: Eminem
Production: Eminem in collaboration with DJ Green Lantern
Album/EP/Mixtape: Em’s “Invasion: Shady Times” mixtape of 2002
Year of Release: 2002
The Feud between Eminem and Benzino
This beef began in the early-2000s when The Source, a popular hip-hop magazine, gave what Eminem deemed an unflattering and even racist review of one of his albums. This caused Em to Shade Benzino, the co-founder of The Source, when the two crossed paths shortly thereafter.
Now Benzino himself has rap skills, and he took the way Eminem treated him to heart. So he went on to lyrical diss Shady while visiting the infamous Hot 97 radio studio in NYC.
During that same month in 2002 Eminem also visited Hot 97 and proceeded to dis Benzino. This resulted in Benzino then dropping a couple of full-length diss tracks. And one song, “Pull Your Skirt Up” (2002), features what many consider to be the highlight of their feud, that being Benzino referring to Eminem as “the 2003 Vanilla Ice”. And he went on to basically accuse Em of being a culture vulture and someone’s whose success stemmed from his Whiteness.
Of course Eminem then had to drop a couple of diss tracks of his own. And Benzino later teamed up with another of Eminem’s hip-hop rivals, Ja Rule. Then he leaked media which still haunts Eminem to this day. It was a track Eminem recorded pre-fame called “Foolish Pride“. On this song Eminem, utilized racial slurs in his lyrics.
The beef between these two personalities is considered to have officially ended in 2005. And at the end of the day, whereas Eminem continued down the path of being a top-selling artist, Benzino lost his job at The Source though eventually took up the reality-TV circuit.
