Eminem has been criticised for comparing himself to the perpetrator of the Manchester Arena terror attack by the brother of one of the victims.
In the song Unaccommodating, the US rapper said: “I’m yelling ‘bombs away’ on the game, like I’m outside of an Ariana Grande concert waiting.”
Dan Hett, whose brother Martyn was killed in the suicide bombing, said that the lyric was “lazy” and designed to help him sell his music to people “with poor taste in hip hop”.
He added: “He’s Ricky Gervais in a baseball cap.”
Eminem makes the comparison between himself and Salman Abedi on his new album Music To Be Murdered By.
The cover art for the album features a photo of the rapper, who is also known as Marshall Mathers, holding both a gun and an axe to his own head and was tweeted by him alongside the caption: “It’s your funeral…”
The line about the terror attack is followed by a sound effect of a bomb detonating.
It’s your funeral…#MusicToBeMurderedBy Out Now – https://t.co/q4TAFJUVGV pic.twitter.com/6PqnTjCKgu
— Marshall Mathers (@Eminem) January 17, 2020
Eminem was also criticised for the lyric on social media.
One Twitter user said that “if Eminem had any amount of decency he would remove the song from all platforms”.
“It’s completely unnecessary and damaging.”
The bombing came just minutes after US pop star Grande had finished performing at the Manchester Arena in May 2017.
The attack killed 22 people and injured hundreds more.
Grande has said there is a lot she will “probably never be ready to talk about” concerning the attack, adding that she “couldn’t believe it was real”.
Along with his new album, Eminem also shared the music video for his track Darkness, which appears to have been inspired by the October 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that claimed the lives of 58 people.
The footage shows a middle-aged white man firing an automatic weapon at concert-goers from a hotel room window.
The message “When will this end? When enough people care” appears on screen at the end of the video and viewers are also urged to register to vote to change gun laws in the US.
Eminem has been contacted for comment.