Winner, Best Rap Album
AP ImagesFew artists as massively popular as Eminem have so aggressively avoided partnering with brands over the years. While pop stars pop up in commercials and any rapper past the platinum mark seems to have linked up with an alcoholic beverage, Slim Shady has stayed in the shadows when it comes to ads.
Well, mostly. Marshall Mathers made one very significant exception when he appeared in a 2011 Super Bowl commercial for Chrysler, taking the wheel to promote the economically strapped city of Detroit and its automotive industry during the recession.
Now, he’s doing it again, and once again, it’s all for love of Detroit. And this one is even stranger.
A new ad for the Detroit Pistons features Eminem reaching into the basketball team’s fridge and pulling out a Tupperware container labeled “mom’s spaghetti,” a slyly hilarious nod to the oft-meme’d lyric in “Lose Yourself.”
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After that, he turns around to see a basketball wearing a spaghetti noodle smile. Sure, why not. The whole thing is very brief — it’s part of an extended series of videos called “The Longest Oop” about a basketball getting passed over and over between local and national celebrities — and it’s a lot goofier than his dead-serious Detroit Chrysler ad.
is sweaty, panels weak, regulation sized & heavy. There’s vomit on its leather already … #TheLongestOop @Eminem https://t.co/8OGzvQBhT8
— Detroit Pistons (@DetroitPistons) October 26, 2015
Big Sean and CeeLo Green made videos for this, too. You can check those out below.
When it comes to Coney dogs, the ball knows @BigSean plays no games. #TheLongestOop https://t.co/x0eolMpP9n https://t.co/EO4PaYBC5I
— Detroit Pistons (@DetroitPistons) October 22, 2015
Home opener halftime act @CeeLoGreen & the have been hanging out too much #TheLongestOop https://t.co/x0eolMpP9n https://t.co/iJVuvliueD
— Detroit Pistons (@DetroitPistons) October 23, 2015
This story first appeared on Billboard.com
