Meet Mariah Carey, the Battle Rapper Who Beat Eminem

Mariah throws more than a couple jabs during the course of the song, cleverly drawing attention to Em's vertical challenges with the "Napoleon complex" line, but the knockout blow has to be, "You're a mom and pop, I'm a corporation." Damn, she's got you there Marshall Mathers. Slim Shady's definitely not hurting for cash, especially since he stopped spending it all on pills, but Mariah is the best selling female artist of all time. Her bank account makes Shady's look like, well, like Nick Cannon's.

You knew it was coming. There's no way Eminem, even a fresh-out-of-rehab Eminem, let's this kind of thing slide, and sure enough it was only a couple weeks before we got "The Warning." This was a battle, and Slim Shady was never one to shy away from a battle. Or as he says, "This is what the f**k I do."






Maybe my expectations were just too high, but I have to say, I was a little disappointed by "The Warning." For a man of Shady's diabolical lyrical genius it's merely a decent effort. He gets in some solid shots, but the track's lacking those "oh shit" moments that we've come to expect from Em. The best part is undoubtedly when he mixes in some clips of Mariah with his name in her mouth. That's some damning evidence, but it's no battle rap. Hell, Rabbit from "8 Mile" could have done better.

Now there's no question that on a completely lyrical basis Eminem emerged victorious, but when you factor is "Obsessed"'s enormous popularity, I'm going to have to give this one to Mariah. That's right Eminem, you just got beat by a woman who did a cover of Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is" on her new album. So let me leave you with a question. If Eminem is one of rap's best battle rappers, and he is, and he just got smacked down by Mariah Carey, doesn't that make Mariah....I'm sorry....I don't know if I can even say this...a dope battle rapper herself? The truth is often stranger than fiction.