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On social media, Eminem created an original gesture for Ezekiel Miller’s birthday. The rap icon posted an anime-style lyric video to “Head Honcho” from Miller’s album, leaving many fans surprised. The caption read “27 on the 27th!” with birthday wishes for Miller. Eminem was choosing a hardly ever traveled artistic path, which puzzled yet intrigued everyone.
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The lyric video, set to bright anime imagery, served to visually interpret Miller’s bars and lengthy lyrical delivery while combining hip-hop culture with Japanese animation styles. The sheer oddity of the construct set the social world aflame with thought possibilities. A user summed up the collective feeling: “Eminem posting anime content wasn’t on my bingo card.” This incubated an uproar in the comments debating whether this was an actual ending surprise since Eminem is known to enjoy comic books and in fact also sampled Tokyo Ghoul on his Kamikaze album.
Annoyingly enough, the birthday boy himself separately entered the discussion: “Salamat boss, ready na ang Pancit at Lumpia” (Thank you boss, the noodles and spring rolls are ready). This Filipino-style twist to classic birthday cuisine catalyzed a wave of support from international fans, throwing in birthday wishes in unison from various languages. An outlet for both artist fanbases to connect across continents.
The actual song evokes wildly opposing opinions. Some said, “One of best songs of the album,” while others said quite the contrary: “Hell no, Ez Mil is trash,” and “Literally the worst song man tf u on.” Such polarized reactions speak of Mr. Miller’s style either going right or wrong with the listener, whereas the anime mask was received well by all.
The funniest comments mourned how it would take an “anime Slim Shady adaptation” before the release of GTA 6. Others pleaded for Eminem himself to “make a manga/comics at this point.” There is so much anticipation pushing the rap icon into greater lands of anime.
International fans joined into the fun; Turkish viewers called to identify their nationals, while French viewers called the video “superbe et originale.” Evidently, the post transcended cultural lines, trying to say, Hip-hop and Anime surely speak a universal language.
Among the merrymakers, some could not resist Eminem deification, “Like if Eminem is the Rap God,” one such comment read. The comment didn’t need any elaboration-a timely reminder on users what Eminem did for Detroit and that he’s not going anywhere anytime soon but rather keeping his fingers crossed in the most unconventional manner for artists like Miller.
While the birthday post kept getting bigger with each passing minute with one observer stating, “77 comments in 2 mins,” such immediate reaction showed a very deep intermingling of interest on anything Eminem puts out, more so that it was something really going to catch him on the artistic side. Be it for or against the song, the anime and the birthday bash made some noise, and Mathers definitely knows how to stir the online pot.
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Lastly, as fans enjoyed the eclectic mix of themes, the new snippet from Eminem promising more exciting collaborations fuels the speculation for what’s next.