It seemed as if nothing could be more ridiculous than Eminem‘s music video for his Venom soundtrack contribution and Kamikaze bonus track “Venom,” except perhaps the film Venom itself. A new Eminem “performance” on Jimmy Kimmel Live, however, has officially given the video—in which an Eminem CD (yes, a CD) shoots Venom sludge at an unsuspecting passerby—a real run for its money.
With Kimmel broadcasting from Brooklyn instead of Hollywood this week, Eminem’s performance took place, naturally, in and on top of the Empire State Building. During the 7-minute performance, Eminem stalks around the hallways of the Manhattan landmark with a wireless mic, and eventually the roof, where a massive lights how heralds his arrival and draws the attention of passerbys on the street. A helicopter follows him, providing a spotlight. There’s a brief respite from the music: an interlude featuring Kimmel sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez and Eminem making small talk in the elevator after Rodriguez hands Eminem a new mic (you know Em needs a doper mic if he’s gonna spit his hardest!) There’s also an introductory graphic that flips the E in Empire State Building to look like the Eminem logo.
This is really cool and profound stuff here, folks—the dumbass Trump-era, Google-smartphone-sponsored version of the Beatles rooftop concert we must surely deserve. When the Sugarhill Gang laid down “Rapper’s Delight” (and when Tom DeFalco and Roger Stern wrote the first Venom-related plotline in issue 252 of The Amazing Spiderman in 1984), this is the kind of thing they must have been dreaming about. Watch the clip below.
