A feud between the two had been boiling up for a while now and was bound to happen. Benzino, a member of the group 'Made Men', previously co-owner of The Source magazine and friend of Ja-Rule who had previously been in a vicious battle with Eminem decided to avenge by using his magazine to turn influence the opinions of the loyal readers. Claiming Eminem is part of 'The Machine', a system where he claimed Interscope and in particular Eminem or Jimmy Iovine was preventing the hood making it's money, Benzino ran a hate campaign on Eminem along with a comic series portraying himself as the savior of hip hop and Eminem as the 'Rap Hitler'.
Around this time Eminem, who also believe The Source had something against him after what he believed poorly rating his albums lashed out with the track 'The Source', hard hitting and claiming that although he had not started this, he will certainly finish it. From here the tracks exchanged with 'Pull up your skirt' from Benzino responded to with 'Nail in the Coffin' followed by a flurry of tracks exchanged between the 2. These included 'Die Another Day', 'Yooz a character' from Benzino and 'Invasion 3 freestyle', 'Monkey See Monkey Do' from Mr Mathers. During this time Benzino also revealed racist tapes, which Eminem publically apologized for, explaining he was angry how he had been dumped by his girlfriend and was 'stupid' at the age of 16. After the release of 'Like Toy Soliders', a song which had Eminem putting the mic down on the situation, realizing that things had gone too far and it was time things came to an end before lives did.
In a short interview Eminem commented on the situation around the time of the 'Like Toy Soldiers' release stating: "A lot of times when rappers have beef, their sales incline. So meanwhile big record labels and heads of record labels, they benefit off this. They go home at night and they can sleep. They can rest their heads, and they can rest easy knowing that they are selling records. Meanwhile, we're really out here".
"We're out here, and when we're not out here, some of our people are out here. Usually, nine times out of 10, somebody out of someone's entourage meets up with someone from somebody else's entourage. Usually the innocent people that really ain 't got that much to do with it — besides affiliation — end up getting hurt or killed. So ['Like Toy Soliders'] was, metaphorically speaking, my way of saying, 'Before this goes any further, I'm done with it."
Benzino and the Source did themselves few favours by going against Eminem in the way they did, with hip hop figures such as Russel Simmons defending Marshall and one time enemies XXL using the opporunity to side with Eminem to further their posistion. Major record label Interscope, followed by Virgin and Def Jam also added insult to injury by pulling all advertising from the Source.
Benzino's next single was 'Look into my eyes', a claim which advertised itself as a track response to 'Like Toy Soldiers' but bar a line or two referring to Eminem is was clear this was taking advantage of the situation and Slims position. The Source has Since paid out a large sum of money to Eminem over copyright infringement and Benzino has retired from the Source ...
Eminem - The Sauce:"No more Source for street cred, them days is dead Ray's got AK's to Dave Mays' head Every issue there's an eight page Made Men spread". Appeared on The Invasion 1 mixtape from Green Lantern.
Benzino - Pull Your Skirt Up: "Let me start from the beginning, you ain't reppin the streets You from the outskirts of Detroit, where the bitches meet".
Eminem - Nail In The Coffin: "What you know about bein bullied over half your life? Oh that's right, you know what that's like, your half white". Appeared on The Invasion 2 mixtape from DJ Green Lantern.
Benzino - Die Another Day:"Cause if Pac was livin', he would shoot this bitch alive But I'm a do it for him, if the hood must survive".
Eminem - Invasion 3 Freestyle: "he might find someone dumb enough who might ride, but aint nobody over here buying two white guys disguised as pro-black there's no slack ".
Eminem - Bully: "Smokes a bag of his weed and starts imagining things, and he just can't see that he's manically depressed". Appears on the Straight From The Lab EP.
Benzino - Checkmate: "Quote Coming".
Benzino - Better Lose Yourself: "Quote Coming".
Benzino - Dear Slim: "Quote Coming".
