Month: June 2004

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. (AP) ‘ The ex-wife of rapper Eminem was sentenced Wednesday to at least four months in jail for leaving a court-ordered drug treatment program without permission:
http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/michigan/index.ssf?/base/news-16/1088613690105280.xml
Macomb County Circuit Judge Edward Servitto sentenced Kim Mathers to a year in jail, but she only will have to serve 140 days if she completes a drug treatment program in jail and then attends another program in Hazel Park after being released, said Russ Marlan, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections.
Mathers twice has dropped out of a court-ordered drug treatment program. She served some jail time earlier this year after dropping out the first time.
Police arrested Mathers in an Ann Arbor hotel room on June 15 after a caller reported she was staying there. A warrant for Mathers had been issued in April.
Mathers was placed on probation after pleading guilty to charges of possessing 25 grams or less of cocaine and failing to give adequate space to an emergency vehicle. The charges stemmed from a 2003 traffic stop in St. Clair Shores.
Mathers and Eminem, whose legal name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III, have a daughter, Hailie Jade Mathers.

Many people may not realize it, but the D12 crew keeps true to their Detroit underground roots. They are still collaborating with many Detroit underground rappers. Swifty, for instance, has founded the ‘Raw Collection’.
The ‘Raw Collection’ consists of Bareda aka Mr Wrong, Lowdown, Reddbone, Sky P and Levone Vanzetti. Mc Reddbone is the only female MC of the group.
‘Raw Collection’ has released a new mixtape in 2003. It is called ‘Grenade Pins’. If you like gangsta rap, you probably gonna like the lyrical grenades that the group will drop on you. You will be able to download it and listen to it here:
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:o5PE-1tPbLcJ:www.beepworld.de/members60/ballaz/mixtapes.htm+%22+Raw+Collection%22+%22Grenade+Pins%22.+&hl=enI
f you take time to listen to the whole album carefully, you will notice that Reddbone’s performances are excellent. Mc Reddbone has won an award as the outstanding female artist at the 2003 Detroit hip hop awards.
Detroit has good female emcees who really deserve more recognition from the public.

Emcee Shane Capone is a veteran in the Detroit underground scene. His name will inform you immediatly about his gangsta style. No doubt: Shane Capone is representative of the Detroit gangsta style.
How does Shane Capone define his own style?
‘A non-commercial, non-watered down, raw & uncut hip hop.’
Shane Capone is a bad boy for real.
He talks about himself as a ‘gansgta and hustler’ personified.
He recorded his first solo work with Scott Summer and formed his record company in 1996 M.O.B with his fellows CNG and KAOS. The name of the company was changed to Rock City Records in 2000.
His first solo album was named ‘Flood These Streets’ and came out in 2001. It has featured D12 (Dirty Filthy Rotten Scoundralz), Bizarre ( A Bizarre Intermission), MC Hush and Paradime (Low Down Grimy) and many others.
Uncle Ill introduced MC Hush to Shane Capone. In 2003, MC Hush was signed to Rock City Records by Shane Capone.
More on Shane Capone can be found on this fansite:
http://www.geocities.com/cutthroatcourier/lyrics.html

Detroit DJ Lenn Swann aka Leonard Adams has more than 17 years experience in Djing. He’s a scratch DJ. He has participated to the beginning of turntablism in the early 80’s.
DJ Lenn Swann has performed on the same stage than many famous performers such as Run DMC, Eminem, Outkast, Linkin Park and many others. He’s been awarded a triple platinum plaque for scratching on Eminem’s song ’97 Bonnie and Clyde. He’s also been the Source Magazine’s Detroit Unsigned Hype Champion.
He has won many contests: among them Detroit Kool Mixx DJ Championship in 2001.
Less known facts about the Detroit DJ:
-He has helped Eminem out in the past. He was supposed to perform at the Wetlands club in NYC with Eminem. The NYC crew-the Cocoa Brovas was opposed to them and didn’t want Detroit emcees to win in any case. That’s why that had messed up Eminem’s tape:
‘They told Em if he wanted the mic, he had to come get it. They had sabotaged his DAT tape (of backing music), so all we had for music was scratching.’
Despite performing under particular difficult conditions, without any music, but DJ Swann’s scratching), the crowd didn’t really care about the messed up tape, so Em and DJ Swann could perform anyway:
‘But the crowd didn’t mind that the tape was messed up. NY’s a hip hop town, they respected that it was just an MC and a DJ.’ (DJ Swann)
-DJ Swann has also provided the sound for D12’s MC Big Proof when he won the Unsigned Hype in 1999 in the Source Magazine.
-He has also toured with Detroit group Slum Village.
DJ Lenn Swann is at the top of the 15 scratch DJ’s in the world and in the top 10 in the USA. Besides his passion for scratching, he is also known for his high quality skills as a battle emcee.
He is not as well known as he deserves it, which is mainly due to the role of the DJ in hip hop, as he points it out:
‘In hip hop, there’s always an unsung hero and it’s usually the DJ.’

Some call him ‘the British Eminem’.
Can Mike Skinner aka The Streets be compared to Eminem? What do both men have in common besides their white skin?
Like Eminem his biggest influences can be found in hip hop. He grew up listening to Run DMC, the Beastie Boys. He’s been largely influenced by Wu Tang Clan, by Dr Dre and Eminem.
‘The Real Slim Shady’ has inspired his song ‘Too much Brandy’:
‘The Real Slim Shady’ was in my head when I wrote it’ (Mike Skinner)
Mike Skinner would love to have an occasion to collaborate with Eminem:
‘I’d go toe-to-toe with Eminem anytime.”
Although their music styles are completely different and despite the fact he’s always been compare to him, Mike has a lot of consideration for Marshall Mathers:
‘The most predictable thing I could do would be to come out and say I don’t really like Eminem because I keep getting compared to him, but I quite like him, you know. I don’t think his last album was anything, but he’s a really good rapper.”
Mike Skinner has even performed in Detroit at St Andrews Hall to promote his second album. He is featured in an article from the Detroit Free Press:
http://www.detnews.com/2004/events/0406/24/d06-193048.htm
When the ‘Let’s Push Things Forward’ video came out, I enjoyed watching it.
If you ask me, I could hardly classify Mike Skinner’s music as rap, because it doesn’t sound like rap music to my ears. Don’t misinterpret my statement: I got lots of respect for Mike Skinner’s work. As far as I am concerned, it is rich of much more different influences such as reggae and jazz to be classified as hip hop.
But still, it remains good musical work.

If you think that Eminem and his D12 fellows are just friends for the show, then you are totally wrong.
Besides Hailie and Nathan, Eminem considers his D12 members as a part of his family:
“They’re my foundation. If I lose my foundation, then what do I have? Just to be by myself on a big-ass mountain, a little lonely rich bastard? Not only are these guys my friends, I don’t trust nobody new that I meet. At all.”
D 12 is, above all, a story of loyalty, as Kuniva points it out:
‘There’s a million things Em could be doin’ besides doin’ an album with D12, but we’re the only real friends he has. We grew up together, lived together, flipped burgers together. We used to just sit on the porch and drink and think about hip-hop, think about makin’ it. There’s a bond there that nobody can break. And there’s a whole thing with him feelin’ like he owes it to us to do it. He knows without D12 there wouldn’t be a Slim Shady.”
Slim Shady needs his fellows as much as they need him. In fact, Marshall owes a lot to his friends too.
At the time he was working with Mike Ruby and some other white friends, people didn’t focus much attention on him. They had been disappointed by white rapper Vanilla Ice and they just didn’t want to hear another similar white rapper.
Marshall had a point to prove to black people in particular: he had to prove that he could rap.
And to be able to prove that he could rap, he had to battle black folks in lyrical battles and to defeat them.
Marshall became credible when he started battling his friends and other black men at the Hip Hop shop that was located at 7 Mile Road. Eminem has also spent a lot of time rhyming with his friends during his sparetime. They have been sharing their passion for hip hop, but also their dreams, pains and sorrows.
They still like playing with words, but Marshall recalls ancient times we can feel his nostalgy:
‘Proof would call me at one, two o’clock in the morning with just syllables, like, ‘Yo, an abominable region, an abdominal lesion.’ That’s how we fed off each other back in the day. Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, Kool G Rap, whoever did syllables, we just locked on to them. That’s what my loyalty dates back to, the days of living on fuckin’ Dresden, on the East Side, in my kitchen wishin’ we could do something. From kids to now, we’re living the dream.”
In the early 90’s, the D12 were known as the hottest emcees in Detroit:
“We were, like, the best MCs in Detroit. It was like, ‘Yo, whoever get on first and get a deal, come back and get everybody else.’ “(Bizarre)
When Eminem got signed by Dr Dre, he immediatly wanted to get his friends from D12 to be part of the contract, being faithful to the promise he had made to his crew. Bizarre remembers when Eminem called three weeks after being signed by Dr Dre:
‘He went to Cali and called us three weeks later from a pay phone. He said, ‘Yo, I just signed with Dr. Dre. I need y’all to come out here.’

Marshall immediatly insisted for his producer to sign his friends too:
” ‘This is my boys! D12!’
But Dr Dre wanted him to build his own career first: ‘Wait a minute – it’s about you. Build your house before you have your friends walk in it.’
The D12 team is also ruled by simplicity. They don’t spend their money on expensive chains, because they are much more focused on their families which honors them:
‘Nobody’s bling is like, wow, like a rapper’s supposed to be, because we kinda value the money a little bit more. We got families. I can’t get out and spend $ 30.000 on a chain. That would be irresponsible on my part.. I like to spend my money on my family, take a nice vacation and stay in a nice hotel. I can’t even think of the last time I went to the store and spent $ 1000 on the shit I wanted.’ (Bizarre)
Slim Shady and his fellows have a lot in common, but their passion for rap keeps the flame alive:
‘One night, I remember, we had just left Alvin’s. It was probably like a year before I got signed with Dre. Swift pulled up in the car and he was like, ‘Don’t you feel like even if we never got deals that we could just rap forever?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I do.’ We knew we had to make it, but if we didn’t, we knew we’d still be rapping. It was in our blood.” (Eminem)
Knowing Eminem and his fellows love for rap, we know that he is speaking the truth.

Many Eminem fans probably know that Marshall’s parents used to belong to a band called ‘Daddy Warbucks’. But did they even guess that Proof’s father produced the great singer Marvin Gaye?
In fact Deshaun Holton’s father has collaborated with many artists:
‘My dad’s a crack head. My father had a group called The Politicians and he produced The Jones Girls.He produced Marvin Gaye,he produced Tower of Power,he did some shit with Rare Earth or Ohio Players. He did a lot of work back in the day.He did Holland and Dozier stuff. My father was doing it.’
Denaun Porter’s father used to belong to a famous gospel group called “The Five Blind Boys Of Alabama”. He stopped his musical career when Kon Artis’ mom was pregnant:
‘When I was in my mama’s stomach, my dad stopped his career to come and raise me. And but for him doing that, I wouldn’t be there. So I’m taking the torch from my dad because he didn’t get to spread the wings the way he wanted to, but he can spread his wings through me.’
Kon Artis is very proud of his father:
‘My dad has always been a superstar to me.’
When Kon Artis uses the name ‘Mr Porter’ in some songs, there is always a clear reference to his beloved father.
Three of our well known D12 members had parents who were involved with music and music production.
Five of them are family fathers.
We all know about Marshall’s little Hailie Jade. Swifty has three kids and Kuniva had his second daughter, Tamia, in April 2004.
Proof is the proud dad of two kids.
Bizarre, who is the only D12 member who doesn’t currenly live in Detroit but in Atlanta, has two kids.
Bizarre claims that his own childhood was good, but his teenage years seem to have been living hell. Why? Because his mom decided to become a Jehovah’s Witness:
‘I had a nice upbringing, but from the age of fourteen to eighteen, my mom decided to be a Jehovah’s Witness. So I had no rated R movies, kinda like Ja Rule, but not faking it. No sex, no girlfriends, but after the fact that I was already doing this and then had to stop because my mother wanted to do.’
The only D12 member who doesn’t have any kids for the moment is Kon Artis.

Singer Dido is said to have fallen out with rapper Eminem over payment of royalties.
http://www.rte.ie/arts/2004/0623/dido.ht
Sky News reports that the star has begun court proceedings against the D12 frontman, claiming ‘1m after he sampled her song ‘Thank You’ for his hit ‘Stan’.
One insider is reported to have said that Dido had a lot to thank Eminem for, as ‘Stan’ helped catapult her to fame, while another said he was sure that the pair would resolve their differences.

‘Still Don’t Give A Fuck’ is the last track of the Slim Shady LP.
The song is deranging on purpose, provocative and made to piss you off. Slim Shady grabs the sharpest lyrical knife to rip you off with no mercy.
The introduction to the song is particularly interesting. It shows that Eminem is not ready to compromise his style for anybody:
‘A lot of people ask me.. am I afraid of death..
Hell yeah I’m afraid of death
I don’t want to die yet
A lot of people think.. that I worship the devil..
that I do all types of.. retarded shit
Look, I can’t change the way I think
And I can’t change the way I am
But if I offended you? Good
Cause I still don’t give a fuck’
Get over it: Eminem doesn’t care about the way you may try to stereotype him. He stays hidden in the shadow, anticipating some silly and angry reactions to his lyrics, laughing crazy at his detractors who keep taking the Slim Shady persona seriously.
He’s been called ‘satanistic’ so many times by some narrow minded people. Go ahead, call him whatever you want.
Slim Shady still doesn’t give a fuck about what you think.
His words are here to haunt you. If you think that Slim Shady’s words are devilish, you are right: Slim Shady is like a demon. But those are Slim Shady’s not Marshall Mathers’ words.
Incisive words. Words you gonna like if you like poetry. The first verse introduces you into Slim Shady’s world of madness. The style is insane, scary and funny. Creative words and thoughts will keep you travelling through Slim Shady’s insane brain. He’s scary, but he never forgets to humor himself, as you will see in the first verse:
“I’m zonin off of one joint, stoppin a limo
Hopped in the window, shoppin a demo at gunpoint
A lyricist without a clue, what year is this?
Fuck a needle, here’s a sword, bodypierce with this
Livin amuk, never givin a fuck
Gimme the keys I’m drunk, and I’ve never driven a truck
But I smoke dope in a cab
I’ll stab you with the sharpest knife I can grab
Come back the next week and re-open your scab (YEAH!)
A killer instinct runs in the blood
Emptyin full clips and buryin guns in the mud
I’ve calmed down now — I was heavy once into drugs
I could walk around straight for two months with a buzz
My brain’s gone, my soul’s worn and my spirit is torn
The rest of my body’s still bein operated on
I’m ducked the fuck down while I’m writin this rhyme
Cause I’m probably gonna get struck with lightnin this time…”
The sarcastic chorus is made to drive you mad if you lack of sense of humor;the references to drugs (weed in particular) are numerous. There’s a beauty in the wordplays and the similarity of the sounds. A sentence like ‘My brain’s gone, my soul’s worn and my spirit is torn /The rest of my body’s still bein operated on’ is full of poetry.
The second verses introduces you into the mind of Slim Shady, a well known American Psycho. The offensiveness of those lines is more than obvious and that’s the beauty of it. Slim Shady is there to shock the offended people including old fashioned parents.
Like Saddam Hussein, he’s a public enemy who causes damages to your house, your family and to the government:
‘So tell Saddam not to bother with makin another bomb
Cause I’m crushin the whole world in my palm
Got your girl on my arm and I’m armed with a firearm
So big my entire arm is a giant firebomb
Buy your mom a shirt with a Slim Shady iron-on
And the pants to match (“Here momma try em on”)
I get imaginative with a mouth full of adjectives,
a brain full of adverbs, and a box full of laxatives
(Shittin on rappers) Causin hospital accidents
God help me before I commit some irresponsible acts again …’
The Slim Shady persona is a danger to society, but you definitly gotta realize that he is a 100% fictional.
Would you take him literally if he claims:’I can’t rap anymore – I just murdered the alphabet…’?
Some clear references to Ozzy Ozborne, Esham and Marilyn Manson are present. I don’t deny that their music may have influenced Eminem. But I’m sorry to disappoint some Esham fans who claim that Eminem has totally copied him. In this context, the references to the three artists are much more due to the use of a shock value. If Eminem uses references to people that are usually classified as ‘devilish’ or ‘satanistic’, it is made to scare and to shock people:
‘I’m a cross between Manson, Esham and Ozzy…’
If it wasn’t the case, Eminem wouldn’t say in the next sentence:
‘I don’t know why the fuck I’m here in the first place…’
The song ends with a funny note:
‘My worst day on this earth was my first birthday
Retarded? What did that nurse say? Brain damage?
Fuck, I was born during a earthquake…’

You might hate him and his music. You might want to diss Eminem. You got the right to.
But don’t allow yourself the right to diss Hailie Jade, because this is something Eminem will never forgive you. Moreover, this is something you may deeply regret: you may find yourself ridiculed on a record through Hailie’s voice. This is exactly what happened to Ja Rule and it may happen to you if you don’t keep your mouth shut:

My daughter is the closest thing to my heart. You say something about my daughter, then there’s no boundaries, everything is open, and Hailie might come on the record and diss you, too. So don’t fuck with me when it comes to my daughter.
(Eminem, Rolling Stone Interview, June 2004)

That’s how the song Doe Ray Me made Ja Rule look ridiculous in front of the whole world.
Don’t confuse Marshall Mathers with some artificial pop star who fakes his feelings towards his entourage. Marshall wasn’t raised in a glamourous way of life. He has known his part of trouble and struggles in life. His fans know him for sharing his deepest emotions with him.
Eminem’s feelings for Hailie are authentic.
When he says: “I’d give my life my life for my little girl…”, I perfectly know that it is a 100% true.
It is also moving to listen to him when he talks about his kid growing up:

It’s the greatest feeling in the world to watch your seed grow, to watch a life that you created look at the world with another set of your eyes. It also hurts to know that one day she’s going to grow up and be out of the house. But thats what we’re here for, to create more life, I guess.

While he was facing Court charges for carrying a concealed weapon, Eminem’s worst fear was to be separated from Hailie:

When I thought I was going to jail…..the scariest thought was, ‘How am I going to tell this to Hailie?’ What am I going to say – ‘Daddy’s going away and he’s been bad, and you have to come and visit him in jail.’ I never told her anything, because if the was a slim chance that I’d get off, then I didn’t want to put her through that emotionally – being scared. She hates it when I go away, anytime.

Eminem’s love for Hailie is fully expressed in Hailie’s Song:

I really dumped my feelings out in Hailie’s Song. I love my little girl enough to sing to her

Eminem is a sensitive man, a caring father who wants to share his love for his little girl with the whole world. When you truly love somebody, you want the whole world to know how you feel and share your positive feelings with everybody. That’s exactly how Marshall feels about Hailie:

I love her so much that I can’t hide the emotion., so i’s gonna come through my music and I’m gonna say her name just to let the world know how much I feel for her. (Eminem, Rolling Stone, June 2004)

It is a matter of fact Hailie has been a real sunshine in Marshall’s life. She has increased his motivation to make something of his life. She has helped him to slow down: Eminem was much more impulsive in his past and some of his mistakes could have cost him a lot.
As Kuniva points it out, Eminem matured a lot thanks to Hailie:

Having a child is gonna make you calm down. Watching that child grow and become something, it’s gotta mellow you out. If it wasn’t for his daughter, he’d probably be locked up by now.

Eminem is the author of many sarcasms in his songs. But he never jokes when it comes to his feelings for his little daughter which is something that even his enemies should respect. Why? Because many of them are family men too who perfectly know what a kid represents in a dad or a mom’s eyes.