Dave Chappelle is suffering from Eminem Disease

This might be a little bit late, but better late than never. I finally got around to watching the two new Dave Chappelle standup specials on Netflix. After years away from the spotlight, one of the most popular standup comedians of all time made his big, triumphant return. While I appreciate the effort, and there were certainly some bright spots, it appears to me that Dave Chappelle is suffering from a bad case of Eminem Disease.

What’s Eminem Disease, you’re probably asking? I’ll explain…

You know how Eminem was, like, the greatest rapper ever about a decade or so ago? For all intents and purposes, few people had ever reached the levels that Em had in rap, whether it be skill-wise, content-wise, popularity-wise, success-wise, or sales-wise. He was as good as anyone’s ever been at making that type of music and the closest anyone’s ever come to perfecting the art of being a rapper. If this were a videogame, Eminem was, and still is, a 99 overall rating on the “rap abilities” attribute.

40 or 4142type43p44contents45type46text47contents48It49t be a masterpiece if he released it in 2017. That isn’t to say that Jay Z is any better than Eminem or that he’s done a good job at evolving

What’s interesting is that both of these legendary performers, Chappelle and Eminem, aren’t technically doing anything wrong. They’re sticking to the formula that’s been working. However, sometimes you need to adapt and evolve, because staying still is often times just as bad as going backwards. 

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