While we wait for Eminem’s response to Nick Cannon’s first diss “The Invitation,” Nick has not been idle. 24 hours later, on December 10, 2019, Nick released a follow-up diss aimed at Eminem, titled “Pray For Him.” The second diss track also includes Nick’s cronies The Black Squad including rap names such as Prince Eazy, Conceited, Hitman Holla and Charlie Clips. Let’s dig out the meaning behind this new track.
The rap battle feud kick-started when Eminem mentioned Nick Cannon and his wife, Mariah Carey, in his feature on Fat Joe’s 2019 track “Lord Above.” In the song, Eminem mentions that Nick Cannon is neutered in his relationship with Mariah Carey. This response was triggered by Nick Cannon appearing on TI’s podcast in September 2019 and rehashing their beef back from 2009.
In response to “Lord Above,” Nick Cannon released “The Invitation,” inviting Eminem to an open-war rap battle. He urged Eminem to release a response diss within 24 hours, which did not come. Instead, Stans ripped Nick Cannon on Twitter.
24 hours later, Nick Cannon released yet another diss “Pray For Him,” with the sentiment that Eminem will need all their prayers to survive this war. Nick’s verse drags in “KILLSHOT” diss by Eminem to Machine Gun Kelly from 2018, to indicate that the actual kill shot came from Nick’s cannon.
Listen to “Pray For Him” (Eminem Diss) by Nick Cannon
Lyrics Review and Song Meaning of “Pray For Him” (Eminem Diss)
Intro
Nick Cannon keeps on pulling Em’s legs to get him into a rap battle.
Verse 1
This time Nick’s partners go first.
Charlie Clips of The Black Squad group start off “Pray For Him” diss against Eminem. He starts off by saying that he understands it is not fair for ‘five talented’ rappers to go against one man in a song. But his justification is that Eminem crossed a Black man (Nick) and they all join forces to retaliate for that. He talks about ‘brotherhood’ with these lines.
More jokes on Eminem’s age follows as Charlie jokingly questions is Eminem is 70-years-old now. Although he corrects himself, saying Eminem is 47, it is still meant as a jab at the Rap God.
Charlie also boasts that his crew has new Jordan shoes coming soon named ‘Wild’n Out Jordans’ whilst Eminem has only got a sneakers deal. He also goes on to say that he didn’t diss Eminem for fame or ‘cloud,’ but just to stand by his brother.
Verse 2
Hitman Holla joins in on the track. He too takes a similar theme to Charlie Clips by saying that two disses by them and no response from Eminem is pretty similar to cyberbullying at this point. He goes on to boast that he is the best in the business. But he is careful not to outshine Nick Cannon on his own track as Eminem did on the “Renegade” feature with Jay-Z.
Next, Hitman goes on to list down all the beefs Eminem had throughout his career. Brtiney Spears, NSYNC, Ja Rule, P!nk and Nick Cannon. Hitman says that Eminem has made a lot of celebrity enemies and he does not want The Black Squad as his rival. According to Suge Knight in “The Invitation,” he does not wish to resort to lyrics to settle this beef, but rather to physical violence.
Hitman further goes on to diss Eminem by saying that he is an ‘all-time-great’ in a small town like Detroit city, where Eminem is currently residing. But what he forgets is that Eminem is still one of the best-selling artists of this decade and has a room full of accolades under his name. Eminem is ranked at #9 on the list of highest-selling artists in the history of recorded music sales.
Verse 3
Rapper Conceited joins the “Pray For Him” Eminem diss and goes on to produce several puns based off of Eminem’s own songs. He mentions “Brain Damage” and “Guilty conscious” to suggest that Eminem is actually brain damaged due to his drug addictions and he has a guilty conscious because of his ruthless past.
Conceited invites Eminem, again, on Nick Cannon’s podcast ‘Wild ‘N Out’ to settle this beef once and for all.
Verse 4
Prince Eazy tells Nick Cannon that he doesn’t even have to appear on this second diss track because The Black Squad got this under control now.
The worst of Prince Eazy comes out on when he raps that he wishes God would have taken Eminem instead of the rapper Juice WRLD who passed away on December 8, 2019, due to a seizure.
Interlude
In these lyrics, Nick Cannon appreciates the work done by his teammates in the previous verses. He suggests that they murdered anything left off of Eminem surviving from “The Invitation.” Nick also says that he was not going to do another diss track for Em, but since his teammates started another, he is going to join them too. He is not about to rap, but about to murder Eminem just like his crew did.
Verse 5
In the fifth verse of “Pray For Him,” Nick Cannon suggests that the Eminem that once was is no more. He salutes the Eminem who produced original music back then and everybody looked up to him. But now Nick Cannon believes that that person is no more. He goes on to insult Eminem by saying that he needs facelifts and botox to fix his ageing face.
Nick Cannon does admit that Eminem was the king of the world and a master lyricist. But he compares that person to the rapper now, where Nick claims that his lyrical prowess has receded. He says Eminem now just growls and spits out curse words as if he had “Tourettes and hysterics.” Further, he states that Eminem is now “debated, disputed, hated” by the whole world.
Nick Cannon also has the audacity to call Eminem “no lyricist,” when the fact is that Eminem is regarded as one of the most lucrative songwriters of all time. Dear Nick Cannon, at least spit true facts in your disses.
In the first verse, the diss track namedropped Eminem’s daughters Hailie and Whitney Scott along with his ex-wife Kim. If the past is any lesson, we know that Eminem does not take it kindly having his family dragged into feuds. In this diss, Nick brings in Eminem’s mother to say that Eminem’s anger towards everybody might be stemming from his “mommy issues.” This is a reference to the very publicized feud between Eminem and his mother Debbie Mathers. Eminem mentions his exasperation of his mother in songs like “Cleanin’ Out My Closet.” However, the rapper seemed to make amends with his mother in later songs like “Headlights.”
Nick Cannon and his crew seem to put everything they got into these two diss tracks targeted at Eminem. The dangers of doing that is, when Eminem responds, Nick would not have any more material to swing back at Em.
Let us see if Eminem decides to respond to either of these diss tracks. Do drop a comment on what you think about this rap feud between Nick Cannon and Eminem.
Check out the complete lyrics and further song meaning breakdown on Genius.