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"Like Toy Soldiers" is a song by American rapperEminem. It is the third single from his fifth album Encore. The song samples Martika's 1989 Billboard hit song "Toy Soldiers" and features interpolations from the main title theme from the 1972 film The Hot Rock. The song peaked at number thirty-four on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 2005, number one in the United Kingdom and the top ten in many other European countries, as well as Australia and New Zealand.
Content
"Like Toy Soldiers" tells the story of Eminem's attempts to calm a violent community of rappers. Eminem speaks openly about problems with The Source magazine and its editor Benzino, as well as the situation between 50 Cent and Ja Rule and his label Murder Inc., which Eminem felt went far beyond the Jay-Z–Nas feud.[1] The song finishes as Eminem offers a truce to his enemies. In addition, this song also reveals that Eminem had tried to stop Ja Rule & 50 Cent's feud, but lost it when he heard Ja Rule making fun of his daughter on a track called "Loose Change" - ("The Ja Shit, I tried to squash it, It was too late to stop it, There's a certain line you just don't cross and he crossed it, I heard him say Hailie's name in his song and I just lost it"). In the song Ja Rule says Eminem claims his then ex-wife is "a known slut" and his mother "a crackhead", and then asks him "so what's Hailie gonna be when she grows up?".[2] "Like Toy Soldiers" was later included on Eminem's compilation albumCurtain Call: The Hits in 2005. Throughout his career, Eminem, at most, only alludes to Suge Knight, completing a line in this song, "my intentions were good, I went through my whole career without ever mentioning -." Styles P used the instrumental version in his song "Soldiers Song", in 2005.[1]
Critical reception
Allmusic highlighted this song.[3] A positive overview cam from J-23: ""Like Toy Soldiers" is among his best work here, from his production (complete with Martika sample), to his gripping recount, assessment and conclusion of the Benzino and Murder Inc beefs."[4] Pitchfork was also positive: "a public hand-wringing over the feuds that Em and 50 Cent have been drawn into, the consequences of these battles, and-- most importantly-- the toll they've taken, both physically and emotionally. The martial beat is a bit heavy-handed, but it's counterbalanced by the pleasantly surprising chorus' sample of Martika's "Toy Soldiers", perhaps a nod to either Kanye's helium-vocaled samples or the 00s trend toward trance-pop covers of 80s hits."[5] NME wrote a favorable review: "Like Toy Soldiers’ is a case in point. The best track of this album, and probably any album this year, it should be appalling. It interpolates (by which we mean ‘steals’) the chorus to a long-forgotten ’80s power ballad by Martika, which would be a surefire route to disaster in anyone else’s hands. Instead, with its martial drumbeat, unashamedly vast-scale soft rock dynamics and that similarly monolithic chorus, it is perhaps hip-hop’s first genuine lighters-in-the-air stadium anthem. And yet it’s probably the most personal track on the album (apart from ‘Puke’, Em’s gleefully puerile broadside at ex-wife Kim – yeah, that old chestnut – which sounds unnervingly like Maroon 5 and is punctuated by the sound of the MC dry-heaving his guts up) as Em tries to draw a line under the various beefs he and his cohorts have been embroiled in. “Even though the battle was won/I feel like we lost it/I spent too much time on it/Honestly I’m exhausted”, he admits. If the sheer volume and widescreen sweep of ‘Like Toy Soldiers’ is a cover for this exhaustion, then it sure works."[6]
Rolling Stone described: "it's really mature, as when the Martika-sampling "Like Toy Soldiers" renounces battle rhyming and its deadly consequences."[7] USA Today noted: "A military drumbeat drives Like Toy Soldiers, in which Eminem offers an explanation for his beef with the Murder Inc. rap clique, The Source magazine and its rapper/owner Benzino, and his part in a dispute between 50 Cent and Ja Rule. He seems to wish none of it had ever happened, and he's ready to move on."[8] RapReviews was less positive: "Continuing to wring out sympathy from his tear-soaked towel of a life, Eminem doubles-up with "Like Toy Soldiers," another self-produced, self-sorry introspection on the Slim Shady saga."[9] The Guardian was happy of sampling: "Like Toy Soldiers, about Ja Rule and Benzino, is similarly brilliant. Set to the album's one genuinely fantastic backing track, involving a military drumbeat and a sample from Martika's forgotten 1980s hit Toy Soldiers, its lyrics switch from truce-calling to belligerent indignation and back again, often in the space of one line."[10] NY Times described: "Toy Soldiers," scheduled to be the next single, recycles the 1980's pop hit by Martika so that Eminem can rehash his beefs with Ja Rule and the Source. But the vitriol is mainly gone, and he sounds sad and clear-eyed, ending the rhyme by proposing a truce: "It's not a plea that I'm coppin'/I'm just willing to be the bigger man./If y'all can quit poppin'/Off at the jaws well then I can,/'Cause frankly I'm sick of talkin'/I'm not gonna let someone else's coffin/Rest on my conscience."[11] Finally, Josh Love was negative: "Or perhaps you don’t mind that Em ruins maybe the best musical moment on the record, the Martika interpolation of “Like Toy Soldiers”, just so he can recapitulate ad nauseum the details of his pitiful n-word controversy (and somehow indirectly blame Afrocentrism for his youthful idiocy)."[12]
Music video
Released on December 3, 2004, the song's video starts with two young boys, one who is white and one who is black, reading a book called "Toy Soldiers," which contains the lyrics of this song. It begins at the hospital where Eminem and other rappers are watching, in despair, the doctors trying to save Proof. Then Eminem is seen in a series of scenes rapping the song in a deserted alleyway. Then, it goes through a series of scenes showing the various feuds mentioned in this song. They include seeing the news, rappers battling in studios, and street encounters. Near the end, Eminem stands shocked seeing the shooting of Bugz. It switches back to the hospital, where Proof dies and finishes at his funeral, which has a choir in which the black kid and the white kid from when Martika starts to sing. Cameo appearances in the video include 50 Cent, Luis Resto, Dr. Dre, Obie Trice, and D12. Deceased rappers 2Pac, The Notorious B.I.G., Big L, and Bugz are also shown at the end of the music video to show the fatal consequences of rap wars.
