Hip-hop star Eminem is demanding Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy stop rapping his songs.
According to The Daily Mail, Eminem asked music licenser BMI to send a cease and desist letter to Ramaswamy.
In the letter dated Aug. 23, the company wrote to the presidential hopeful’s campaign it had “received communications from Marshall B. Mathers, III, professionally known as Eminem, objecting to the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign’s use of Eminem’s musical compositions (the ‘Eminem Works’) and requesting that BMI remove all Eminem Works from the Agreement.’
“BMI will consider any performance of the Eminem Works by the Vivek 2024 campaign from this date forward to be a material breach of the Agreement for which BMI reserves all rights and remedies with respect thereto,” it added.
The letter comes after Ramaswamy performed Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” during a campaign event.
In case you missed it:
US #Republican presidential candidate Vivek #Ramaswamy performed #Eminem's song "Lose Yourself"
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) August 29, 2023
Seeing this, Eminem asked Vivek Ramaswamy not to perform his songs anymore.
Ramaswamy, we recall, wants to recognize the occupied territories of the #Russian Federation and lift… pic.twitter.com/xiG69GQQXS
Ramaswamy reacted to the news on X, formerly known as Twitter, with lyrics from another one of Eminem’s songs as he wrote, “Will The REAL Slim Shady Please Stand Up? He didn’t just say what I think he did, did he?”
Will The REAL Slim Shady Please Stand Up? He didn’t just say what I think he did, did he? @Eminem ? https://t.co/iOOuG6SU2D
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) August 28, 2023
Check out some of the reactions below:
Eminem has turned into such a dork that he makes Vivek look cool pic.twitter.com/ymeZfhhwbH
— Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) August 28, 2023
Right before the 2004 election, Eminem released an anti-Bush song called "Mosh."
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 28, 2023
One of its lyrics was "No more blood for oil. We got our own battles to fight on our own soil."
Now he's angry that the the most anti-war candidate in the GOP primary sang his song at an event. https://t.co/jXtQv0YBS7
crazy how Eminem wrote Mosh and is now tripping out that the anti-war guy is singing his song. Politics is a weird thing
— Emma-Jo Morris (@EmmaJoNYC) August 28, 2023
According to RealClearPolitics’ average of polls, Ramaswamy is in third place for the Republican presidential nomination with 7.6% support.