page_title: Up Out My Face
section_title: Lyrical interpretation
hierarchical_section_title: Up Out My Face / Lyrical interpretation
caption_attribution_description: English: Eminem raps with a live band during The Concert for Valor in Washington, D.C. Nov. 11, 2014. DoD News photo by EJ Hersom
context_page_description: "Up Out My Face" is a song by American singer and songwriter Mariah Carey from her twelfth studio album, Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel. Written and produced by Carey, Tricky Stewart and The-Dream, it is a club music song which includes a marching band in its instrumentation. It received a mixed response from music critics, but its humorous lyrics attracted praise. Brian Mansfield of USA Today believed that the lyrics were directed at Eminem, whom Carey has a longstanding feud with, at one point singing "I know you're not a rapper, so you better stop spittin' it." Carey released "Up Out My Face" as a remix featuring Nicki Minaj in January 2010 for a proposed Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel remix album called Angels Advocate, which was ultimately shelved.
context_section_description: Brian Mansfield speculated that Carey was addressing Eminem in the lyrics, with whom she has had a longstanding feud. Carey has reportedly been romantically linked with several male celebrities during the course of her career, some of which she has openly spoken about and acknowledged, while others she has denied dating. Eminem has claimed on multiple occasions that he dated Carey, but Carey has always firmly denied that she knew him on a romantic level. In 2001, Carey contacted Eminem to discuss the possibility of writing a song together for inclusion on Carey's ninth studio album Charmbracelet (2002), and they reportedly started dating soon after.
  In 2002, Eminem mentioned the singer twice on The Eminem Show, his fourth studio album, on the tracks "Superman" and "When the Music Stops", both of which were revealed to have been inspired by their relationship in Eminem's 2008 autobiography, The Way I Am. The former track contained the lyrics "What you trying be? My new wife? / What, you Mariah? Fly through twice," while the latter suggested that he begged to be taken back by Carey. Later that year, Eminem confirmed that they had been in a relationship in an interview for Rolling Stone, but claimed to have not been fully committed to it and that he disliked her as a person, while Carey told Maxim that it was never a "sexual relationship" and interviewer Larry King "I hung out with him, I spoke to him on the phone. I think I was probably with him a total of four times. And I don't consider that dating somebody." Carey recorded a song called "Clown" for Charmbracelet which "ambiguously addressed the relationship" with the lyrics "Should've left it at I like your music too" and "You should've never intimated we were lovers/ When you know very well we never even touched each other."
  In 2005, Eminem played voicemails to the audience during his Anger Management Tour allegedly from Carey and reported as saying "Why won't you see me? Why won't you call me?". Eminem reiterated his dislike of Carey the following year on a track called "Jimmy Crack Corn" from his compilation album, Eminem Presents: The Re-Up, with the lyrics "Your mind's on us like mine's on Mariah / And y'all are just like her, you're all fucking liars / But I'll just keep fucking you like I fucked her / Right in the ass with KY yes sir." 50 Cent referenced Carey's denial of the relationship on a track called "All of Me" from his third studio album Curtis in 2007: "Em predicted it all, I don't know how he knew it / He said women from Hollywood they liars, liars, liars / You fuck them, they get you heated, deny it like Mariah." Two years later, Eminem released a song called "Bagpipes from Baghdad", on which he took aim at Carey's husband Nick Cannon by calling him a "prick" and wishing him "luck with the fucking whore". The lead single from Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel was "Obsessed". Many critics believed the track to be about Eminem, and its accompanying music video portrayed Carey being followed by a male stalker which critics also thought bore a strong resemblance to the rapper. Mansfield thought that the lyrical content of "Up Out My Face" appeared to be a continuation of "Obsessed" and her feud with Eminem, as Carey sings "I know you're not a rapper, so you better stop spittin' it."
caption: USA Today writer Brian Mansfield speculated that the lyrics of "Up Out My Face" were about Eminem (pictured).
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