Benzino, whose arms are so short he cant reach his hands, was the owner of the source magazine until he left the magazine in 2005. he is remembered for his beef with Eminem which took place throughout 2002 until 2005. Despite popular belief this beef kind of started in 2000 when Eminem had released The Marshall Mathers LP when it first released it got 2/5 mics were basically the rating system in the source magazine so if something got a low rating people wouldn't buy it the backlash the source magazine had faced was so bad that it forced the magazine to change the rating from 2 mics up into 4 mics.
Later on in 2002 Eminem released The Eminem Show and it was praised across the board; one of the magazines rating it was the source apparently gave it 4 mics out of 5 mics. Eminem had enough of this, and so, in the song "Say What You Say" Eminem says: "5 mics in the source? / Ain't holding my fucking breath / But I'll suffocate for the respect / Fore I breathe to collect a fucking check". This line is when people began to speculate Eminem having issues with the source which then would lead to the beef with Benzino.
In September 2002, Eminem was performing at a concert. When he went backstage Benzino actually tried to talk with Eminem, though he said to the press initially that Eminem had acted strange towards him backstage. In an interview with Obie Trice, Obie had told the interviewer that he had talked with Benzino and had asked Benzino to hook him up with a good review for Obie's upcoming album "Cheers", until one day DJ Green Lantern had called Obie and told him "dawg Benzino is hot 97 right now dissing the fuck out of you".
Later on in Fall of 2002 Benzino had released the "Hood Stories" mixtape and in one of the songs "I don't wanna" he had said a few lines about Eminem the lines were "The only ‘M&M’ I know is Made Men/ by the way he ain't ever gon play me I'll show this bitch what it is to be shady / I don't care how much records you sold you can't through the hood without the men in black disrespect your moms bitch you deserve a smack / It's not a black-and-white thing that shits on the past I got some white boys in Boston that will bust yo ass" Eminem would later go on to call into "Hot 97" two times one of the times was when he talked about his issues with the source he said "you know what used to bother me? it's been the mic rating system." according to Eminem the source was "the bible of hip hop" so if something got a low rating it would be called trash and people wouldn't buy it and people would barley if not never get 5 mics so Eminem had said "i have yet to even get a 4 and a half" so later on in October 2002 Benzino would go on to diss Eminem on a song called "Pull your skirt up" he even dissed Obie trice and brought up 50 Cent.
He even dissed Canibus in the line "five shades darker motherfucker you be Canibus / no one would care about your complicated rhyming style another backpack rapper out of style". Eminem had not responded and according to Eminem at the time it was because his manager Paul Rosenberg had not been trying to start a beef with Benzino, there was even a phone call between Paul and Benzino where they had been talking about Eminem, however late night in November 2002 "Dj clue" had aired the "Shady times" mixtape which some of the songs were going at Benzino songs like "Invasion 1" and "Nail in the coffin" and "The sauce" one of the most memorable lines in these songs were "Here let me break this shit down in layman's terms just to make sure you can understand it and Canibus ain't using to many complicated words for you / here let me slow it down for you so you can understand if I say it slower / let it go dawg it's over".
sometime in 2003 Benzino had released his "Redemption" album which had sold horribly and then he would later go on to release his mixtape dissing Eminem and Eminem would respond on "The conspiracy" mixtape a lot of the songs were aimed at Ja Rule and Benzino. 50 cent would then go on to be involved in this war and even Dr. Dre would get involved in this war but in an interview with XXL magazine Dr. Dre had talked about not caring much about the beef Benzino would then mention Dre in a line where he says that Dr. Dre steals beats and so on and so fourth. however in November 2003, the mixtape Straight from the Lab would be leaked and a lot of the songs were going at Benzino but things would go political as near the same time Eminem's mixtape leaked Benzino would also leak something that Eminem had made he played two tapes one of Eminem saying the N word and another of him full on dissing black girl's it was very controversial
Eminem would immediately go on to respond to the claims that he was racist and reveled that it was because he broke up with a African American girlfriend and in "Yellow Brick Road" Eminem would continue to talk about this incident and would apologize about the song. the year 2004 had began and the beef between Eminem and Benzino had spiraled out of control from diss tracks to a lawsuit in the court room Eminem was suing the source magazine for leaking the tapes. Later on in November 2004 Eminem would go on to release Encore and one of the songs "Like Toy Soldiers" Eminem had stated he was done with the Ja rule beef and tried to offer a truce to Benzino. However in early 2005, Benzino had felt different about the situation and had released the song "Look into my eye's" which had a music video in the music video he mocks Eminem and the music video where in one of the line's he says "If Eminem wanna squash tell him call me/ meet anywhere he can bring his whole army" and would later release the song "Built for this" in which was a full on diss track towards Eminem but then after that everyone would go their own separate ways Eminem would struggle for a bit with drugs and Benzino would leave the source magazine in 2005
Sometime in 2011, seven years after the beef had ended Benzino would apologize to Eminem for the beef and would apologize again in 2014 but in 2018 Benzino would talk trash about Eminem's Revival album and is now currently constantly talking about Eminem and even challenged Eminem to a boxing match but Eminem hasn't spoke about Benzino since 2004 and probably never will talk about him again.