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Eminem's new song references Las Vegas mass shooting

Eminem's new song references Las Vegas mass shooting
Posted at 10:44 AM, Sep 04, 2018
and last updated 2018-09-04 13:04:23-04

Rapper Eminem released his 10th studio album "Kamikaze" at midnight Aug. 31.

The release, which was unannounced, arrived 8 months after "Revival," which was met with mixed reviews. According to an article in the USA Today, people on Twitter are pointing out the similarities between the cover art and that of an album titled "Licensed to Kill," released in 1986.

That is not what KTNV noticed though. Instead, it was the mentions of mass murderer Stephen Paddock and Mandalay Bay in the song titled "Greatest."

Here are the specific lyrics from the first verse:

Manic states, Stephen Paddock with automatic stay sprayin'
At anything that may stand in they way
As I stand at the bay window with a hand grenade
And a tre eight, at the Mandalay Bay
Common sense, I'm a dollar short and a day late

Stephen Paddock killed 58 people during the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, 2017. Several hundred people were also injured during the worst mass shooting in modern history. 

Paddock killed himself before Las Vegas police officers could reach him inside Mandalay Bay. The motive behind the shooting is still a mystery.

The next lyric of the song refers to another mass murderer.

James Holmes at the Saturday Batman matinee

Holmes was convicted of killing 12 people and injuring 70 others at a Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012.

LISTEN TO SNIPPET OF SONG BELOW

CLICK HERE FOR FULL LYRICS  

People on social media also noticed.

Earlier this summer, fans were sent into a panic at Bonnaroo in Tennessee after hearing what they believed to be gunshots. The rapper was criticized at that time for not being sensitive after what happened during a music festival in Las Vegas.

Fat Mike and the band NOFX were banned in the United States after they made a joke about 1 October victims while performing in Las Vegas during the Punk Rock Bowling Festival.

A CBS legal executive was also fired shortly after the shooting for a tweet that he sent just hours after the incident. The tweet read in part: "I'm actually not sympathetic bc country fans are often republican gun toters."

Of course, Eminem is not the first artist or band to mention mass shootings or mass killers in song.

The song "Sniper" by Sros Lords is about a school shooting with lyrics written from perspective of the perpetrator.

Pearl Jam's song "Jeremy" is about a bullied boy who committed a school shooting.

"Suffer Little Children" by The Smiths is about the Moors murders in Machester, England, in the 1960s. 

Two songs from Alice Cooper's album "Brutal Planet" were reportedly based on the tragic event at Columbine High School. Marilyn Manson's song "Disposable Teens" is also about the Columbine killers. 

Bruce Springsteen's song "Nebraska" was about a 19-year-old spree killer named Charles Starkweather.

Charles Whitman, the man who went on a killing spree at the University of Texas in 1966, was the inspiration for Insane Clown Posse's "The Tower."

The album was executive produced by Dr. Dre. Mike Will Made-It is also credited on several tracks, along with Illadaproducer.