Eminem, the rapper who is perhaps best known for his hit “Lose Yourself,” is apparently losing his cool with 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, as Ramaswamy rapped Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” at the Iowa State Fair back in early August.
According to the Daily Mail, a lawyer for Eminem’s music license, BMI, informed Ramaswamy’s lawyer that BMI is demanding Vivek stop using Eminem’s music during his campaign events or face the legal consequences for using it without a license.
The report on that demand in the Daily Mail notes that the label’s August 23 letter said 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.”
Reportedly, the letter then went on to say that “his letter serves as notice that the Eminem Works are excluded from the Agreement effective immediately.”
Then, getting to the not so thinly veiled legal threat, the letter to Vivek reportedly said, “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.”
Vivek’s campaign, speaking to the Daily Mail about the rapping incident and how it will respond to the letter, said, “Vivek just got on the stage and cut loose. To the American people’s chagrin, we will have to leave the rapping to the real slim shady.”
That’s not the only IP-related controversy facing Vivek, who is now the number 2 Republican after Trump in some polls. He’s also accused, perhaps spuriously, of plagiarizing former President Barack Obama during his appearance at the first GOP primary debate.
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In the debate, he said, “So let me just address a question that is on everybody’s mind at home tonight: who the heck is this skinny guy with the funny last name and what the heck is he doing in the middle of this debate stage?”
For reference, former President Barack Obama famously, during the 2008 presidential race, described his hope of being president as “the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.”
Ramaswamy’s comment did fit with the rest of his speech, however, as he also said, “My parents came to this country with no money 40 years ago; I have gone on to found multi-billion-dollar companies. I did it while marrying my wife, Apoorva, raising our two sons, following our faith in God—that is the American dream. And I am genuinely worried that that American dream will not exist for our two sons.”