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This is my interview about Eminem which was posted on a French Eminem website , The Eminem World (http://the.eminem.world.free.fr/). I’d like to share it with you.
Isabelle,how did you discover Eminem ?
My son Marcus is very fond of music channels and he made me discover Eminem in August 2001. He wanted me to watch the ‘Stan’ video and he insisted so much that I finally accepted to see it.
A white M.C rapping was a real mystery to me and I decided to investigate more on Eminem.
I watched an ‘Eminem weekend’ on MTV. I particularly admired his performances, his sense of humor and the particular kind of relationship he has with his public.
I heard him talking on an interview and I was impressed with his sincerity and his integrity as an artist.
I wanted to study his lyrics and that’s how I discovered a talented wordsmith with a wonderful sense of humor.
As a mom,aren’t you sometimes scared Slim Shady could be a bad influence for your son?
Absolutely not!Why? Simply because I think the parents’ role is to teach their kids (Em also said it in his interviews) to distinguish between right and wrong.
I took time for my son and me to have fun with Eminem’s music and also to study his lyrics with him.
If you take a serious look at his lyrics, you will be able to know when he’s joking or not.
‘Do you think that Eminem’s success is related to his skin color ? Doesn’t he walk in the footsteps of Elvis Presley?”
No, I don’t think that the success of Eminem is related to his skin color but rather to his pugnacity, his determination to fullfill his dream and especially with his great talent to handle the words. Some of his enemies such as Benzino and Ja Rule strongly point out his skin color and and accuse him to have stolen the culture and music of Black people. He has not choosen the color of his skin!
Moreover, Eminem grew up in the black hood of Detroit. He embraces the black culture, his best friends, such as Proof de D12 are Blacks. I don’t think that one can really compare him with Elvis.”
“Do you make a difference between Eminem, Slim Shady and Marshall Bruce Mathers III? If so, which of these three characters do you prefer?”
“Yes, I make a great difference between Marshall Bruce Mathers III, Eminem and Slim Shady. Marshall corresponds, of course, to a real person, the one that I admire and who went through many torments in his childhood. I completely distinguish him from Eminem and Slim Shady which are characters of scene.
That’s why I decided to tattoo Marshall Mathers III on my left shoulder, in reference to his person and not to the artist. Eminem is his name of scene which represents its initial M&M. Eminem, for me it is the artist full with humour who fascinates his public on stage and who is so talented.
Slim Shady is the dark character who haunts Eminem. It’s its bad side, his baser instincts, his impure thoughts. And like he says it so well in “The Real Slim Shady”, “there is Slim Shady of each one of us”. Slim Shady is an alarming character, a psychopath killer and that what makes him so interesting! Because the public know he is fictionnal.
“Which of his music defines best Eminem… And which music defines best Isabelle Esling?”
Difficult question… I would say “If I had” and “Rock Bottom”, for his hard time period. “8 Mile Road” and “Lose Yourself” for his faith in his dreams; “The Way I Am” when it is exceeded
“Marshall Mathers” refers to the relationship he has with his “family”. In fact, Eminem is very complex. “Hailie’s song” can also define Eminem, it is an hymn of fatherly love.
The music which defines me best?
”Rock Bottom ” for the hard periods also…
“8 Mile Road” for my dreams and hopes. “The Real Slim Shady” for my provocative side. “Cleaning Out My Closet” for the rage accumulated since my childhood…I would also say that I find myself in Eminem because while having lived at different places and in different contexts, we have something in common. My two children are metis and I’ve been influenced a lot by African culture.

“Basically what I was trying to do with it was take [people] back to ’95, that time when that beef was happening,” Em added. “Make them realize how ridiculous the beef was in the first place that it ever came to that level.”
Regardless of how the public receives the record, Slim Shady has already garnered the stamp of approval from those closest to Tupac ‘ his mother, Afeni Shakur, and his clique of prot’g’s, the Outlawz.
“It came out incredible, it’s undeniable,” Outlawz member E.D.I. said about the new “Running.” “I think [Em’s] up and coming and well on his way to being one of the top producers in the game. I think he’s going to be a force to be reckoned with, just like on the lyric side, because he puts just as much effort into the production as he does with his lyrics.”
“I think that the music is spectacular,” Afeni Shakur, who disclosed that yet another album of unreleased music from her son will come out in 2004, said about the work Em did on the “Resurrection” soundtrack. “Every time we do a Tupac record I am amazed at the quality of the product. I think everybody will be happy with it. It’s good music and it’s a good flow. It really is. I’m excited about it.”
Although the track list for the soundtrack is still being ironed out, there’s a chance we may hear Em and Pac rap on the same record. Slim Shady recorded vocals for one song that may make the cut.
“We got a song with Eminem on the ‘Resurrection’ soundtrack called ‘One Day at a Time,’ ” E.D.I. detailed. “He did the beat. It’s us, Pac and Eminem. It’s almost like we’re sending a message to the hip-hop community. I think with all the drama [Em] has been in the last year with the Murder Inc. thing ‘ I don’t want to speak for him ‘ but I think he kind of wanted it put it out there that this is still rap and let’s not take it to the next level and always be conscious of what happened with Tupac and Biggie.
“Let’s try to connect,” he continued, “let’s try to mend old wounds and do it one day at a time. Pac is speaking from the grave, but he’s saying, ‘Let’s all get together one day at a time.’ The record is positive and something hip-hop needs right now, especially coming from Eminem.”

by Shaheem Reid, with reporting by Lauren Lazin
With the impending release of “Tupac: Resurrection,” which hits theaters November 14, MTV presents two shows: “Tupac: Resurrection – An MTV Movie Special” and ” Tupac: Resurrection: Soundtrack,” which premiere on MTV October 30 beginning at 11 p.m. ET.
Marshall Mathers just heard the news and was so shocked he didn’t know what to say or do. It was a moment that no rap fan will ever forget ‘ how could they? The hip-hop community’s hearts were racing a thousand miles per second and the only thing moving faster were their minds. Everyone was angry, confused and, most of all, heartbroken.
It was September 13, 1996, and the world had just learned that one of the all-time great musical talents has passed away. Music would never be the same.
“I remember exactly where I was when I heard that Tupac died,” Eminem said solemnly. “I was cooking in a restaurant. It was me, Kuniva and Kon Artis from D12. We all had the same job. There was a big TV screen. We all just kinda watched it, just dazed. It almost didn’t feel real.”
Like all of us, the future mic king was horrified.
“I remember just the feeling of like, ‘Holy sh–!’ ” Em continued. “This is how real it got? I just remember this feeling of gloominess. A lot of the people at the job that I worked at didn’t understand Tupac or didn’t understand the music. So they were looking at us like, ‘What? What’s wrong? What’s the big deal? Get over it.’ And it’s like, ‘Nah, you don’t, you don’t understand. This is a really f—ed-up day.’ ”
September 13 was the beginning of a long period of mourning for a young Em and the rest of the hip-hop community. He’d been listening to Tupac since he was 17. Watching Shakur play out his real-life movie through the media, Em felt so connected to Pac it were as if they were growing up together. It didn’t matter that Pac came up in the ‘hoods of Baltimore and Oakland, California, and Em was growing up in Michigan. Shakur’s messages resonated loudly.
“There’s a lot of things about Pac that stood out,” Eminem said. “Personality. I guess no matter what color you was or where you came from, you felt like you could relate to him. He made you feel like you knew him. I think that honestly, Tupac was the greatest songwriter that ever lived. He made it seem so easy. The emotion was there, and feeling, and everything he was trying to describe. You saw a picture that he was trying to paint. That’s what I picked up from him, making your words so vivid that somebody can picture them in their head.”
One Tupac record that will always stick out for Slim Shady was “Dear Mama,” a song he played in his car for practically a year after it came out. Another was the tragic tale of a young mother who meets a woeful fate, “Brenda’s Got a Baby.”
This year, Eminem was given the extraordinary opportunity to put his own spin on Pac’s music when he was enlisted to produce tracks for the soundtrack to MTV Films’ “Tupac: Resurrection.” Even as he sits at the top of his game, producing the late master was an assignment Eminem never thought would come his way.
“Nah, I’d be like, ‘Get the f— out of here,’ ” Em said about ever imagining producing for one of his idols. “When they told me I got a chance to do anything for this [soundtrack], I was like, ‘OK, gimme it.’
“I just got sent a bunch of Tupac a cappellas and went crazy with them,” he said about the initial stages of the production process. “Whatever I could salvage out of anything, I just banged out a bunch of tracks. It’s not difficult when you get somebody like Tupac and you already have their vocals. All you gotta do is find the tempo of the song, and you just build the beat around it. That’s what I like to do anyway. For two or three weeks straight, we just went at it.”
The first release from the soundtrack is “Running (Dying to Live)” and is a remake of a posse cut called “Running From the Police,” where, most notably, Pac and the Notorious B.I.G. were featured. To breathe new life into the record, Em incorporated a sample of Edgar Winter’s “Dying to Live,” in addition to snippets of Tupac and Biggie interviews.
“I just got sent a bunch of Tupac a cappellas and went crazy with them.”
“It was obviously one of their earlier songs,” Em explained. “The movie is documentary style so I tried to make the song documentary style. You hear Tupac coming in with basically the last interview that he did. He was down-talking Biggie. Then after Biggie’s verse, you hear Biggie trying to downplay the [beef], basically trying to dismiss it as if it was nothing.

Despite his vile lyrics and wild-man rep, Eminem turns out to be a regular, run-of-the-mill dad and man about the house.
The rapper — real name Marshall Mathers III — is so crazy about his daughter Hailie, 7, that he’s building a studio in his Detroit home so he can work and still spend every available minute with her and her mother Kim, a close friend of the family told The Hookup.
“Marshall is a good man who loves his family,” the friend said. “He wakes up with Hailie so they can eat cereal and watch morning cartoons together.”
Eminem, 30, is a great cook who loves to whip up French toast and pancakes for his family. He takes Hailie to Chuck E. Cheese’s on Friday nights and keeps her in public school so she won’t get stuck-up, the source said.
“Marshall isn’t like others in the spotlight,” the friend insisted. “He’s real down-to-earth and doesn’t wear flashy clothes or jewelry like other rappers. He’s self-sufficient and quite charming.”
The singer-turned-actor is so good-hearted that he’s taken his mother’s half-sister Betty and her three children into his home and supports them all, the friend said.
He sometimes takes his extended family to Outback Steakhouse and then treats them to a movie — just like any average dad, the source said.
And when his little brother Nathan, 17, was being picked on by a high school bully, Eminem went to the school to tell the guy to lay off.
“Marshall relayed to the rest of the kids in school that fighting and violence don’t solve anything,” the friend said. “He even stayed to sign autographs.”

Published on: June 16, 2003 National Enquirer
This article draws an objective picture of Marshall Mathers in his everyday life: a regular guy who lives a normal life. It shows a good Daddy and family man who keeps simple despite his success and celebrity. This article will certainly help people understand easily that Slim Shady is only a character.Hopefully…

If I Had Life.. by Marshall Mathers
What is life?
Life is like a big obstacle
put in front of your optical to slow you down
And everytime you think you gotten past it
it’s gonna come back around and tackle you to the damn ground
What are friends?
Friends are people that you think are your friends
But they really your enemies, with secret indentities
and disguises, to hide they true colors
So just when you think you close enough to be brothers
they wanna come back and cut your throat when you ain’t lookin
What is money?
Money is what makes a man act funny
Money is the root of all evil
Money’ll make them same friends come back around
swearing that they was always down
What is life?
I’m tired of life
I’m tired of backstabbing ass snakes with friendly grins
I’m tired of committing so many sins
Tired of always giving in when this bottle of Henny wins
Tired of never having any ends
Tired of having skinny friends hooked on crack and mini-thins
I’m tired of this DJ playing YOUR shit when he spins
Tired of not having a deal
Tired of having to deal with the bullshit without grabbing the steel
Tired of drowning in my sorrow
Tired of having to borrow a dollar for gas to start my Monte Carlo
I’m tired of motherfuckers spraying shit and dartin off
I’m tired of jobs startin off at five fifty an hour
then this boss wanders why I’m smartin off
I’m tired of being fired everytime I fart and cough
Tired of having to work as a gas station clerk
for this jerk breathing down my neck driving me bezerk
I’m tired of using plastic silverware
Tired of working in Building Square
Tired of not being a millionaire
But if I had a million dollars
I’d buy a damn brewery, and turn the planet into alcoholics
If I had a magic wand, I’d make the world suck my dick
without a condom on, while I’m on the john
If I had a million bucks
it wouldn’t be enough, because I’d still be out
robbing armored trucks
If I had one wish
I would ask for a big enough ass for the whole world to kiss
I’m tired of being white trash, broke and always poor
Tired of taking pop bottles back to the party store
I’m tired of not having a phone
Tired of not having a home to have one in if I did have it on
Tired of not driving a BM
Tired of not working at GM, tired of wanting to be him
Tired of not sleeping without a Tylenol PM
Tired of not performing in a packed coliseum
Tired of not being on tour
Tired of fucking the same blonde whore after work
in the back of a Contour
I’m tired of faking knots with a stack of ones
Having a lack of funds and resorting back to guns
Tired of being stared at
I’m tired of wearing the same damn Nike Air hat
Tired of stepping in clubs wearing the same pair of Lugz
Tired of people saying they’re tired of hearing me rap about drugs
Tired of other rappers who ain’t bringin half the skill as me
saying they wasn’t feeling me on “Nobody’s As Ill As Me”
I’m tired of radio stations telling fibs
Tired of J-L-B saying “Where Hip-Hop Lives”
But if I had a million dollars
I’d buy a damn brewery, and turn the planet into alcoholics
If I had a magic wand, I’d make the world suck my dick
without a condom on, while I’m on the john
If I had a million bucks
it wouldn’t be enough, because I’d still be out
robbing armored trucks
If I had one wish
I would ask for a big enough ass for the whole world to kiss
You know what I’m saying?
I’m tired of all of this bullshit
Telling me to be positive
How’m I ‘sposed to be positive when I don’t see shit positive?
Know what I’m sayin?
I rap about shit around me, shit I see
Know what I’m sayin? Right now I’m tired of everything
Tired of all this player hating that’s going on in my own city
Can’t get no airplay, you know what I’m sayin?
But ey, it’s cool though, you know what I’m sayin?
Just fed up
That’s my word
This song from the Slim Shady LP draws us a dark and pessimistic vision of life. It is linked to a hard financial period Eminem was experiencing. Some people may argue that those lyrics are so dark and depressing, but so many references to reality can be verified as true – friendship and money for instance. Very few people can claim to have experienced true friendship. Many friendships are much more hypocritical relationships based on interest than loyal friendship. Most of the time money corrupts any relationship and brings around much more fake friends and relations.
“If I Had” describes the condition of a man who is tired spinning around, with no way to escape to his current situation, tired to be hired and fired the same day, tired of doing so many different jobs. It’s the story of a man who is fed up with doing the same monotonous jobs, whose dreams always seem to break down.
He is still unsigned and feels like all doors are closed. Nobody wants to give him a real chance.
In his frustrations, his will is to make a lot of money and to stop being dominated by people. Many poor people have been through those kind of situations.
While writing this song Eminem was in a bad mood. Nothing seemed to work, he was surrounded by problems. Like he often does in many of his songs, he was expressing his feelings of the moment. Of course, if he describes the tough reality in its ugliness, he’s not supposed to be positive, is he?

A Turkish man was stabbed to death after hawking T-shirts depicting U.S. rap superstar Eminem because a man mistook the sales pitch as an insult to his mother, Turkish newspapers said on Tuesday.
A knife fight broke out in an Istanbul suburb after 19-year-old Dilaver Akkurt told T-shirt vendor Hayrettin Demir his mother was named Emine and lived in the area, Hurriyet newspaper said.
“Eminem” means “my Emine” in Turkish.
Akkurt warned Demir to stop shouting “Eminem” and to cease sales of the clothing inscribed with the star’s name and image.
Police believe Demir, who died at the scene from multiple stab wounds, was killed by a friend of Akkurt’s in the brawl in Istanbul’s Kucukcekmece district, Hurriyet said.
Police have detained Akkurt, who was being treated in hospital for wounds, and are still searching for Demir’s killer, the newspaper said.

For those who still believe Eminem might be a racist, I would like to quote him in his own words in an interview given to the Spin Magazine:

“Sometimes I feel like rap music is almost the key to stopping racism. If anything is at least going to lessen it, it’s gonna be rap. I would love it if, even for one day, you could walk through a neighborhood and see an Asian guy sitting on his stoop, then you look across the street and see a black guy and a white guy sitting on their porches, and a Mexican dude walking by. If we could truly be multicultural, racism could be so past the point of anybody giving a fuck; but I don’t think you or me are going to see it in our lifetimes.”

Are those the words of a racist man? Certainly not!
Being accused of racism, constantly stereotyped by closed minded people, the truth needs to be told about Eminem.
In fact, Eminem battles against racial discrimination in America. He clearly states it in his song “White America”: “I would have sold half if I was Black, I ain’t have to graduate from Lincoln high school to know that.”
Eminem is very conscious of racial discrimination against Blacks in America( lower salaries, longer jail sentences).
He is deeply convinced that rap music is a solution for racial issues.
He also stated the “N” word does not belong to his vocabulary.
I’d like to address to untalented gangsta wannabees like Benzino who only see the fact that he’s white and ask them if Eminem chose to be born white.
If we remember the contect in which Eminem grew up accross 8 Mile, we will understand that he was the one to experience racial discrimination from black people. Instead of retaliating against Blacks, he totally embraced their culture.
He has fully proven to be a non racist person.
What more do you want from him?

“Sometimes I feel like rap music is almost the key to stopping racism. If anything is at least going to lessen it, it’s gonna be rap. I would love it if, even for one day, you could walk through a neighborhood and see an Asian guy sitting on his stoop, then you look across the street and see a black guy and a white guy sitting on their porches, and a Mexican dude walking by. If we could truly be multicultural, racism could be so past the point of anybody giving a fuck; but I don’t think you or me are going to see it in our lifetimes.”

Are those the words of a racist man? Certainly not!
Being accused of racism, constantly stereotyped by closed minded people, the truth needs to be told about Eminem.
In fact, Eminem battles against racial discrimination in America. He clearly states it in his song “White America”: “I would have sold half if I was Black, I ain’t have to graduate from Lincoln high school to know that.”
Eminem is very conscious of racial discrimination against Blacks in America( lower salaries, longer jail sentences).
He is deeply convinced that rap music is a solution for racial issues.
He also stated the “N” word does not belong to his vocabulary.
I’d like to address to untalented gangsta wannabees like Benzino who only see the fact that he’s white and ask them if Eminem chose to be born white.
If we remember the contect in which Eminem grew up accross 8 Mile, we will understand that he was the one to experience racial discrimination from black people. Instead of retaliating against Blacks, he totally embraced their culture.
He has fully proven to be a non racist person.
What more do you want from him?

by Chuck Eddy, December the 25th 2002.

So when you’re born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas Day, and then suddenly your daddy’s not a pawn and you’re not a pauper anymore, do you get more presents on your birthday, or less, or what? Hard to say, but Hailie Jade Mathers, who turns seven December 25, already has a whole Toys “R” Us worth of stuff, not to mention an indoor pool to swim in (at least that’s what her great-grandma, Betty Kresin of St. Joseph, Missouri, who hereby wishes Hailie happy birthday and Hailie’s dad Merry Christmas, says), so she’ll probably do OK. Word is that her daddy maybe spoils her a little, and why not?
“If Hailie wanted a hamburger at one o’clock in the morning, he’d go get it,” Great-Grandma Kresin says. “If Hailie wanted to go to a movie, Marshall (her dad, born in St. Joseph himself) goes with her; he doesn’t have a nanny do it. They just have to sneak in through the service door.” He even has her name and picture tattooed near his right shoulder.
“He lets her play with the neighbors, and has cookouts,” Kresin continues. “He loves children. I think if he had his way, he’d have a lot of children. He always wanted to have a family.” As a matter of fact, she says, Hailie’s dad has also been taking care of another little girl lately. “Marshall adopted one of Kim’s sister’s kids,” Kresin explains.
Kimberley Anne Scott is Hailie’s mom; her relationship with Marshall has been a little rocky, seeing as how he pulled an unloaded gun on her once when he caught her playing tonsil hockey with some doofus ex-nightclub bouncer. Plus he has this habit of enlisting Hailie to help him record hilarious and obnoxious and highly moving songs where he murders Kim and stuff, but the couple seem to be back together now. “I think it’s for Hailie,” says Kresin, who won’t absolutely confirm that the pair have reunited. Kim’s sister’s daughter is two years older than Hailie, Kresin explains. So is the adoption legally binding? “She’s got his last name,” Kresin answers. “What would you call it?”
Marshall and Kim and Hailie and Hailie’s cousin’plus Marshall’s aunt Betty and uncle Jack, who help out with child care’are all said to live together in a great big house in Clinton Township, Michigan, a lovely suburb situated around three branches of the Clinton River. Kid Rock and Uncle Kracker live in town, too, as do about 95,600 other people, according to the 2000 Census. (92.8 percent of them are white; 4.7 percent are black.) Marshall, who is just 30 years old (and contrary to his previous predictions isn’t yet in the nursing home pinchin’ nurses’ asses while jackin’ off with Jergens), reportedly paid more than a million and a half for the mansion.
It’s part of a gated yuppie community called Manchester Estates; the subdivision is located near Cass Avenue (named for onetime slave-owning Michigan governor Lewis Cass), more or less in between 18 and 19 Mile roads’i.e., about 10 miles north of where Marshall grew up. The title song from his new movie goes like this: “I’m free as a bird/And I turn and cross over the median curb/Hit the burbs and all you see is a blur.”
He moved from his last house because the city of Sterling Heights wouldn’t let him build a 12-foot fence to keep kids from littering his lawn with M&M wrappers. But Manchester Estates is working out better. Marshall’s neighbors like him a lot. “I personally have dealt with Marshall. I know Marshall. We live right next door, so we see him all the time,” says Cathy Roberts. “He is a wonderful performer, he is a wonderful father, he is an awesome neighbor’you can imagine’and he is a great person.”
“He’s normal, down-to-earth, and puts his pants on the same way everyone else does,” Roberts continues. “A very, very good father.”
“Couldn’t ask for a better neighbor, that’s all,” agrees Mary Russo, who has grandkids. “He’s been really good around here. Sorry, I know you guys don’t want to hear that.”
“He’s introduced himself to my husband and we see him around the neighborhood trick-or-treating. He always waves when he goes by. They’re real friendly,” says yet another neighbor. “He plays with his little girl. He never lets her out by herself. He scooters around the block with her on her bike. Now he’s teaching her to ride her bike without training wheels.”
At Halloween, according to the Detroit News, Marshall’s lawn was decorated with haystacks, yellow chrysanthemums, and three smiling scarecrows. Neighborhood kids come over and shoot hoops with him.
But at the center of his universe, there’s his little girl, who likes watching The Powerpuff Girls with her dad and jumping on the trampoline. She started making friends in town not too long ago, thus reportedly squelching any plans the family might have had to move to California. Pretty much every afternoon when Marshall’s not on tour, he heads over to the school where Hailie attends first grade, and brings her back home. (Word is that Marshall’s leasing a Benz, but foreign cars in Metro Detroit are ill-advised, of course. Around town, he opts for Fords.) Though Hailie’s dad could no doubt afford to send her to Cranbrook, he makes fun of the famous Bloomfield Hills private school toward the end of his movie; no hypocrite, he sends her to a public elementary’albeit one located at the end of a quiet, secure, secluded little street, where paparazzi or stalkers or anyone else out of the ordinary would stick out.
Though no one will divulge whether he cooks up brownies for the school’s bake sale, sources say that Marshall’s been known to show up for PTO meetings. The school’s Web site, in fact, boasts that 99 percent of parents attended fall conferences. “Parent involvement is directly associated with student success,” the Web page says; parents are asked to read with their children for 15 minutes every evening, and to “also please work on math facts.” (“Everywhere I go, a hat, a sweater hood, or mask,” Marshall rapped this year. “What about math, how come I wasn’t ever good at that?” But sometimes parents learn from their kids.)
“The Elementary Schools Student-Parent Handbook” for Chippewa Valley Schools prohibits weapons and unauthorized medication and “boom-boxes,” as well as tank tops, halters, and “pants not worn at the waistline.” “Verbal threats or assault may result in suspension and expulsion,” the handbook informs. “Any behavior or language, which in the judgment of the staff or administration, is considered to be obscene, disrespectful, profane and/or violates community held standards of good taste will be subject to disciplinary action.”
“With the right of expression comes the responsibility to use it appropriately,” the student-parent handbook concludes. Which might sound familiar to Hailie’s dad, given the words concluding this Hartford Courant review by Eric Danton: “He raps on The Eminem Show about freedom of speech as an inalienable right, but Eminem seems unwilling or unable to accept the accompanying responsibility.”
Eminem, of course, is Marshall’s alter ego. And sometimes Eminem goes by the name Slim Shady. And sometimes he plays a movie character who shares a name with the protagonist of John Updike novels about suburban midlife crises. In 8 Mile, when Rabbit’s buddies are doing their ceremonial Devil’s Night-style arson on the eyesore shell of an abandoned Motor City crack house, he salvages a torn, burnt snapshot of a happy (black) nuclear family, gets all choked up, and says, “When I was little, I used to want to live in a house like this.”
When Marshall Bruce Mathers III was tiny, his maternal grandma Betty remembers, “The little boy would give me letters, and say, ‘Could you give them to my daddy?’ ” He never met his dad, who left when he was six months old. And he hates him for it, says so in his songs, and imagines kids who listen to him feeling the same way: “He’s a problem child, and what bothers him all comes out/When he talks about his fuckin’ dad walkin’ out/’Cuz he just hates him so bad that it blocks him out/If he ever saw him again he’d probably knock him out.”
Marshall didn’t call his grandma on Thanksgiving, she says, but that’s OK; she heard he was in the studio till 4 a.m. Besides, she’s got 12 other grandchildren, and she didn’t hear from all of them, either. “He’s an excellent grandson. I’m very proud of him,” she says. “You get him offstage, and he’s so polite’he says, ‘Yes, Grandma, no, Grandma.’ And he never talks bad around his little child. He’s still kind of shy.” Betty’s doctor recently asked her for an Eminem T-shirt.
She’s met other fans, too. “I had a person who was abused growing up tell me not too long ago, ‘ “Cleanin Out My Closet,” he wrote that for me,’ ” Kresin says. “He’s not just making up words. I can relate to the songs, too. When my grandmother [who raised her] wasn’t switching me till I was black and blue, she used to put me in a spooky closet full of mothballs, and lock me in it.” She says she’s been looking for a ghostwriter to help her finish a book about all this.
Deborah Mathers-Briggs’Betty’s daughter and Marshall’s estranged mom’was due to be born on what would eventually be Hailie’s birthday, Kresin says. Instead, she wound up being born on January 6, just like Kresin’s grandmother. “Debbie was born on her birthday, and I feel she was under a curse. My grandmother is shoveling coal now; God doesn’t want her, and Satan won’t have her.”
In 1972, Debbie gave birth to Marshall. And Kresin wound up raising Marshall’who was born the same year as her son, his uncle Ronnie, who first introduced him to rap music’when Debbie couldn’t, or wouldn’t. “I had a baby and a grandson at the same time,” she recalls. “It was like having twins.” Sometimes when they were acting up in the backseat of the car, she’d scold them; Marshall would “start chanting, ‘If we don’t stop, we’re gonna have to walk! If we don’t stop, we’re gonna have to walk!’ “When Debbie would take him up to Michigan and leave Ronnie in Missouri, Kresin says, both boys would feel empty and beg to see each other at Christmastime.
Kresin says she thinks Debbie took her “hurt and bitterness” out on Marshall. “When you have verbal and mental instead of abuse that’s physical, you can’t really see it,” she says of the boy’s upbringing. “If it’s snowing in New York, and your mom tells you again and again that it’s 80 degrees out, you’ll believe it.” In the early ’90s, Ronnie committed suicide, and Kresin says Debbie blamed it on Marshall.
“She put my poor little grandson on such a guilt trip,” Kresin remembers. “She told him that Ronnie was trying to call and call when Marshall was out rapping. Which isn’t true, because I was with Ronnie the entire time! She said, ‘I have some bad news for you’Ronnie’s dead, and he wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for you,’ ” Kresin says. Marshall wound up taking an overdose of Tylenol on the day of the funeral and couldn’t go. (Debbie’who Kresin says is “in hiding, up north”‘could not be reached, and Eminem himself was unavailable for comment.)
Deborah Mathers-Briggs, for her part, has insisted she never abused drugs, that she actually spoiled Marshall and never raised her voice to him when he was growing up, and that she sacrificed to support him and his 16-year-old brother Nathan (who still lives with her). She told the BBC that her relationship with Marshall started imploding when she also took in his girlfriend Kim, who was 12 at the time; she said Marshall, who is two years older than Kim, didn’t move out until he was 25. A couple years ago, she even sued him for defamation and put out a CD single called “Set the Record Straight.” The case was settled before trial by Marshall paying $25,000.
“He was an excellent son,” counters Kresin. “He never said anything bad about Debbie, and it’s coming out now. It’s his way of healing.” (Possible examples: lyrics about how he doubted his mom’s breast-feeding abilities due to her lack of tits, how his mom took his bike away ’cause he stuck his guinea pig in the microwave, how his mom always taught him the important lesson of “goddammit, you little motherfucker, if you ain’t got nothin’ nice to say then don’t say nothin’,” how all bitches is ‘hos even his stinkin’-ass mom, and how he never meant to hit her over the head with that shovel.) “I love that boy,” Kresin says. “I’ll defend him till the day I die.”
And if his relationship with Kim is any indication, he seems to be reliving part of his grandma’s life. Starting at age 15, Kresin was married to, but repeatedly split up then reunited with, the same man. “He was the boss of me, and he was cruel to me,” she says. “And I’d never heard the word divorce.” Kim and Marshall were married in St. Joseph in June 1999; Eminem filed divorce paperwork in August 2000; they made up in December 2000; Kim filed for divorce in March 2001; and now they’re apparently back together. Last time around, they wound up agreeing on joint legal custody of Hailie after a months-long battle, and a Macomb County court recommended Eminem pay $2740 a week in child support, $156 a week in health insurance, and 90 percent of health care costs.

THE BEST WHITE RAPPER
Getting in Touch with Your Inner Slim Shady
by Erin Franzman
EMINEM IS THE BEST white rapper there is, because he doesn’t try to sound black. Lil’ Kim can rhyme “of course” with “Christian Lacroix” (“of cawz” and “la-crawz”) by dragging her vowels until they’re flat as pancakes–without sounding like a fool–but when the Beastie Boys roll out their suspiciously deep Noo Yawk accents (even though they’ve lived in SoCal for about 10 years), it can get a little embarrassing.
But Eminem rhymes like a white boy… who can rhyme. He’s the first one to do that. And the contrast between Dr. Dre’s full, round, lazy bass beats and Em’s buzzy, frenetic mosquito delivery makes radio hits like nobody’s business. The Marshall Mathers LP would be full of radio hits if only it wasn’t so motherfucking full of words you can’t say on the radio.
The songs about himself, like “The Way I Am,” “The Real Slim Shady,” “Remember Me?” “I’m Back,” and “Marshall Mathers,” are where he excels. It’s Eminem’s saving grace that he can’t see past the end of his own nose; he may not be worldly, but he’s utterly without pretense. He’s effortlessly controversial because his rhymes are pure, unadulterated id, and in our culture of over-explanation no one seems to notice that his songs are fantasies. “Kim,” a disturbingly specific song about killing a cheating girlfriend, is really sick, especially when you realize that Kim is a real person, the mother of Em’s child and now also his wife. One can imagine him playing the track for her and the two of them having a good laugh… a nervous laugh. As sick as his shit may be, it’s still, somehow, universal.
And when it gets too sick, remember: You can’t take him seriously, because he’ll say anything for a rhyme, including dissing the hand that feeds him: “And Dr. Dre said? Nothing, you idiots! Dr. Dre’s dead! He’s locked in my basement!”
Nor is Eminem one to smile and make nice, to put it mildly. He’s a brilliant satirist when he chooses deserving targets, especially the way he calls out his TRL peers: slutty Christina Aguilera, goody-goody Britney, the (admit it) homoerotic undertones of the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync.
We all think it; Eminem says it.
I particularly agree on several points:
-Eminem’s great ability to rhyme
-Eminem doesn’t try to sound black:he has always been conscious to be white in a black musical genre
-some rhymes are, of course, not to be taken seriously
-Eminem has the courage of his opinions and he expresses them loudly. If he is “mad enough to think it, then he’s mad enough to say it”(quoting the Real Slim Shady)

August 30, 2002– Hip-hop wordsmith Eminem recently released an animated video to his song “White America,” a clip that criticizes the United States, calling it the “Democracy of Hypocrisy” and “Divided State of Embarrassment.” The video is laced with vivid images of people urinating on the White House lawn, a Columbine-like school shooting, the Constitution being ripped in half, Eminem being hung in front of a lynch mob and other shocking images.
In the song, Eminem says, “Surely hip-hop is never a problem in Harlem/ Only in Boston, after it bothered ya fathers of daughters startin’ to blossom/ Now I’m catchin’ the flack from these activists.”
In an interview with CNN, critics of the rapper compared Eminem’s influence to that of Charles Manson, the mastermind behind a long string of murders in the ’60s. According to published reports, Manson simply had a mental influence over his followers, The Manson Family, who committed the murders on his behalf.
Darrell Scott, whose daughter was murdered in the Columbine shooting spree, likened the rapper to Manson, because of his effect on his millions of fans.
“Eminem represents an influence on the lives of young people. And we really need to take a long look at the influences that come across the media and entertainment,” Scott said to CNN.
In songs like “I’m Back,” Eminem has mocked the notion of having an unnaturally powerful influence over the minds of listeners.
“I take each individual degenerate’s head and reach into it, just to see if he’s influenced by me if he listens to music,” he said in the song, “And if he feeds into this shit he’s an innocent victim and becomes a puppet on the string of my tennis shoe.”
On his 2000 CD, The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem expressed a reserved sympathy for the shooters in the Columbine tragedy since they were reportedly bullied and were exacting vengeance on random students in April of 1999. In several songs, like “Brain Damage,” he quips about being bullied in school.
After the premiere of “White America,” Scott said that the public should cease to purchase Eminem’s records, all of which have sold millions of units.
“I encourage young people that are listening to please not spend your money and be entertained at the expense of my daughter’s death and the 12 other precious people who were killed at Columbine,” Scott continued.
In a prepared statement, Interscope Records defended the rapper, saying, “Eminem is an artist. He creates art. He does not do it so that the media can use it and solicit angry responses from the public. He does it for fans.”
The video for “White America” was produced by award-winning producers Guerrilla News Network and has been deemed too controversial for television.
Of the video, GNN said in a statement, “In order to fuse GNN’s underground political culture with Eminem’s profane anti-American rant, we pitched a concept that would ‘place the viewer in the body of Eminem as he moves through the media-drenched environment that is the subject for his critique of American society.’ In this way, we were actively seeking to divert the emphasis from the cult celebrity of Eminem and have the video be a platform for a broader and hyper-visual critique of America itself.”

Of course Columbine drama is a touchy subject. Eminem’s video “White America” caused a lot of controversy. The parents from Columbine High School were upset when the new video was released.Darrell Scott thinks Eminem makes jokes about his young daughter’s death.
Eminem expressed his sympathy for the killers and also explained his point of view: “Columbine is so touchy. As much sympathy as we give the Columbine shootings, nobody ever looked at it from the point of view of the kids who were bulllied- I mean , they took their own life! and it was because they were pushed so far to the edge that they were so mad. I’ve been that mad!”
Eminem has been bullied at school and he can relate to what is going on in the mind of a kid who gets bullied. People should think before judging so fast, they should try to analyze each side’s point of view.
It’s so frustrating, humiliating for a kid to be beaten up every day at school.
Interscope defended the right to artistic expression for Eminem.
The political statements made in White America are to be taken seriously. Eminem envisions America’s violent society and troubled youth. We should not be too sensitive to the harsh reality that is shown in “White America”.
Because of his own harsh childhood, Eminem stands next to the youth, he helps us to understand young people better.
Eminem’s art is not supposed to be politically correct. He is not supposed to please the vast masses of listeners, but to expose the truth, even if his vision is scary and shocking some sensitive people.
Eminem has the courage of his political opinion, which encourages us to show our criticism and not to accept empty political speeches wherever they might come from.Marshall Mathers has shown his critism towards the American government. But some people seem to forget that he loves America…it is funny to notice that the last sentence of his song “I’m just playing America, you know I love you.” is always forgotten intentionally by people who think he is totally anti American.