Rappers don’t get much bigger than Marshall Mathers III, better known as Eminem. The producer, songwriter, actor and household name has notched up ten number one albums, five number one singles and a string of high profile and hugely successful movie and video game appearances. When he speaks, the world listens. So Eminem referring to Bitcoin in a song represents some top notch publicity for a sector which has dropped significantly in public awareness during the prolonged bear market.
“Not Alike”, which features rapper Royce Da 5’9”, is taken from Eminem’s Kamikaze album. It’s a hard-edged production and features a string of expletive-laden lyrics. Amongst the rhymes is the assertion that “‘Everybody used to bite Nickel, Now everybody doin’ Bitcoin.” Of course even an artist of Eminem’s calibre can’t move markets with a line in a song, but this is perhaps a sign of the first stages of truly mainstream acceptance for Bitcoin and the crypto scene.
This isn’t the first time Bitcoin’s featured in popular music culture, though it is surely the highest-profile case we’ve seen so far. Amongst the artists who’ve referenced crypto are John Barrett, the country and western singer, singer-songwriters Kryptina and Naomi Brockwell, and Tatiana Moroz, who went even further and launched her own crypto, Tatianacoin.
The hip-hop world also has established ties with crypto, perhaps most notably with rapper 50 Cent’s 2014 announcement that he would accept payment in Bitcoin for purchases of his “Animal Ambition” album. The move was rumored to have made the infamous MC a Bitcoin multi-millionaire. All told the music world has done its part to promote the nascent crypto industry. Only the months and years to come will show the true impact of such cultural endorsements.
