Sada Baby put Eminem back in the center of Detroit’s long-running conversation about whom the rap legend has — and hasn’t — lifted, firing off blunt commentary that cut straight to the divide between mainstream acclaim and hometown expectations.
The Detroit rapper laid out his position without hesitation, saying Eminem’s legacy is undeniable on paper, but complicated on the ground where he and other local artists built their careers.
“He’s the biggest white rapper ever, damn near the biggest rapper ever, if you do a non-biased poll off of his numbers and the s### that he done did?” he said, framing Em’s chart dominance as a simple fact.
But Sada then shifted to the tension that has long hovered in pockets of the city’s rap scene.
He argued that the praise for Eminem doesn’t flow naturally through Detroit’s neighborhoods because artists who look like him never felt directly connected to Slim Shady’s rise.
“You don’t hear everybody that comes out of Detroit screaming Eminem or praising Eminem unless it’s Big Sean, because unless it’s Big Sean, he ain’t did s### with nobody that got the same skin color as us,” he said.
Sada pointed to BabyTron’s collaboration with Eminem as a win for up-and-coming artists but not a moment that moved Detroit’s street conversation.
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“Like, shout out to Tron, he got a song with Eminem, that’s a win for all young artists, period, you feel me? But Tron also ain’t from Detroit, you know what I’m saying? Like, he from Michigan, but he ain’t from none of these sides to where it’ll move the needle in the streets.”
He stressed that the criticism isn’t rooted in hostility.
“We the streets, so until he double back and do that, it ain’t gonna be too much celebration for Eminem going on in the hood,” Sada said, making it clear the disconnect is about access, not anger. “We ain’t just sitting up and talking bad about Eminem, you feel me? We don’t got no problem with him.”
For Sada, the gap is cultural and historical.
“Where people think that inner Detroit artists got a problem with Eminem is that a lot of us wouldn’t say he’s our favorite rapper, because we don’t really resonate with him,” he said. He credited the late Proof as the rare bridge who actually spent time in their neighborhoods. “Proof, because Proof used to spend time over here. Proof actually died over here. Besides Proof, we really don’t got no ties to him.”
He closed by grounding the issue in proximity and presence, noting how other local figures maintain ties Eminem never forged.
“We got ties to Trick Trick and know him because Trick actually be around here. Eminem never reached back and grabbed a n***a that looked like us, for anything, no type of music, no nothing, and ain’t nobody saying he got to, ain’t nobody saying he should have.”
The conversation lands as Detroit’s new generation continues redefining its identity outside Eminem’s global shadow.
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