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Last week, Eminem dropped his 10th studio album without any sort of pre-release promotion.

Of course, Kamikaze has been described as a "surprise" for reasons that go beyond its unanticipated release.

Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, the album has been regarded by many fans as a return to form for the 44-year-old rapper.

In the early days of his career, Em was as well known for his merciless lyric assaults on his rivals as for the razor-sharp wordplay that first caught the attention of the rap mainstream.

Over the past decade, however, Eminem sobered up, settled down, and stopped devoting so much of his attention to feuds.

Unfortunately, Slim Shady’s newfound maturity made him an easy target for a bumper crop of young rappers attempting to build up their reputations by attacking his.

One such emcee is Machine Gun Kelly, who attacked Eminem with the above diss track in response to shade thrown by Slim on Kamikaze.

The beef began years ago, when a 23-year-old MGK called Em’s daughter Hailie (just 16 at the time) "hot as f–k" in a bizarre tweet.

On his latest release Shady basically warned MGK to keep all such thoughts to himself.

Unfortunately, MGK is thirsting to become a household name, and he saw Em’s diss as an opportunity for a come-up.

Normally, Em would be quick with a blistering response, but as he explains in the interview above, he’s caught between a rock and a hard place.

As the superior technical emcee, he could put MGK in a body bag with ease.

However, he’s well aware that by doing so, he would be giving the 28-year-old rapper a much-needed career boost.

Em’s frustration with the situation is abundantly clear in his conversation with Sway:

Eminem, Fist Raised
(Getty)

"Shut the f–k up," Shady says in reference to his latest rival.

"Now, I’m in this f–king weird thing where I’m like, ‘I gotta answer this motherf–ker.’ And every time i do that — as irrelevant as people say I am in hip-hop — it makes that person bigger."

Sounds like a frustrating scenario.

Of course, there are worse problems to have than being such a legend that your challengers are dying for you to acknowledge their existence.