Eminem drops surprise album, advocates changes to gun laws

Rapper Eminem once again dropped a surprise album, releasing “Music to Be Murdered By” on Friday — along with a video that calls for changes to gun laws.

The follow-up to 2018’s “Kamikaze” — also released without warning — was announced on Twitter just after midnight.


The Detroit rapper’s new music video for “Darkness,” one of the album’s 20 tracks, depicts a shooting at a concert. The lyrics and storyline of the video specifically allude to the 2017 mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead, making it the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. It closes with audio and video footage of news broadcasts from other recent mass shooting around the U.S. and an appeal to register to vote.

“When will this end? When enough people care,” reads the text at the end of the video. “Register to vote at vote.gov. Make your voice heard and help change gun laws in America.”

A link to the music video on Eminem’s website encourages viewers to contact or visit several gun violence prevention organizations, including Everytown for Gun Safety and Sandy Hook Promise.

The cover art features blood spatter and a bearded Eminem clad in a suit and fedora and holding a shovel. An alternate cover features the same splatter, with a now hatless Eminem holding both a hatchet and a gun to his head in an homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 album of the same name: “Inspired by the master, Uncle Alfred!” Eminem tweeted.

“Music to Be Murdered By” is Eminem’s 11th studio album, according to his website.

Among many collaborators, the album features Ed Sheeran, Skylar Grey, Anderson .Paak and Juice WRLD, the 21-year-old rapper who died in December.

source: entertainment.inquirer.net

Man survives California, Las Vegas shootings one year apart

One man who lived through the mass shooting in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, 2017, had another brush with death when he survived a mass shooting at a college bar in Thousand Oaks, California, on Wednesday, Nov. 7.

Brendan Kelly was inside the Borderline Bar and Grill on Wednesday night when former US Marine Ian David Long opened fire, killing 12 people in the process, including Ventura County Sgt. Ron Helus. As per ABC News on Nov. 8, Long used a .45-caliber handgun, Glock 21, and had with him an extended ammunition magazine.


Kelly is a regular at the bar and was inside for around an hour when he heard the first shots. “Pop pop,” Kelly was quoted as describing the gun shots as per ABC7-New York on Nov. 8. “Being in the military, being in the Marine Corps, I’m aware of what that sounds like, especially in an enclosed area.”

Upon hearing the gunshots, he immediately grabbed people around him and brought them to the ground for cover.

“As soon as I identified where the target was or where the threat was, I grabbed at least two people around me and yanked them as hard as I could to get to the nearest exit,” he said in the report.

After escaping, Kelly made a call to his family to tell them of the news, the kind he never thought he would ever have to make again following the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017.

As injured victims started to surface from the bar, Kelly immediately came to their aid and performed a tourniquet to one friend’s arm with his belt.

“I wanted to help as best I could,” Kelly said. “If we could be the first level of first responders before they got there, then you do all you can do instead of standing around not doing much.”  Cody Cepeda /ra

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net