Eminem Is Challenging Comedian Chris D’Elia To A Rap Battle

Last week, Eminem and Logic dropped their collaborative new single “Homicide.” The track was met with mixed reviews as some felt that the pair’s fixation on the state of “lyricism” in contemporary hip-hop was narrow-sighted. Still, the track has been performing incredibly well, hitting the No. 1 spot on iTunes and Spotify’s US Top 50. It’s expected to debut near the top of the Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart. As such, the rappers have been continuing to promote the song.

“Me and @chrisdelia are gonna battle one day,” Eminem tweeted on Tuesday. He was calling out Chris D’Elia, the person whose voice can be heard at the end of the song. D’Elia is a stand up comedian who has appeared on shows like NBC’s Whitney and ABC’s The Good Doctor. Last September, D’Elia posted a minute-long video to his YouTube channel called “Eminem Rapping,” in which the 39-year-old lampooned the rapper’s penchant for dense, rhyme-heavy bars. The video made its rounds on social media and quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of views. Eminem took notice and included audio from the viral clip on “Homocide.”

Hearing about the challenge, D’Elia posted a response on Instagram. “Slim Shady himself called me out?! I accept! Swipe left,” he wrote, accompanying a photo of himself standing next to an open car trunk filled with napkins (a reference to a line in his irreverent freestyle). D’Elia told Billboard that he didn’t accept any compensation for the song and that the shout out was “a huge honor.”