Almost forgot about this. Why not post it? No one reads this shit anyway.
***
I recently talked with a mixed-race friend of mine. We shot the shit, classes came up and I told him about Hip-Hop Journalism. He then proceeded to tell me that he had taken a similar class—and had chosen to write his final paper on “why white suburban kids love hip-hop.” Fitting the bill of his subject so precisely made me feel a bit vulnerable. I voiced this to a fellow white hip-hop lover at lunch recently, to which the waspy Texan quickly responded, “The same reason we love Mafia movies.” I have to admit I see his point. I identify as an (Irish-)Italian. Some of my distant cousins and uncles are indeed mobsters, but I don’t see Mafia movies as my own direct culture. I’m not running drugs, bookie operations, or giving people the cement shoes. I’m the generic white girl just trying to get by in school to a soundtrack of face-melting metal, indie prog-rock, and hip-hop music I can’t live without.
Still, I can’t help but question what right I have to listen to, to love hip-hop. Middle-class, white, college kid. I suppose the rights I have to hip-hop are the same as those I claim to metal: I feel its anger and it soothes my own (though they may stem from very different sources), and I simply love the music. The beats. The way the words pour out over the samples with such ease, the sneering, rolling cleverness that makes you wish you had the authority, the words, the wit to pull it off yourself. I find solace in my favorite rapper—my music collection currently sports about 800 songs rapped, featuring, or produced by him—who just so happens to be white as well.
Eminem was voted the best rapper alive by a poll run in Vibe magazine in 2008.
He hadn’t released any major albums since 2004’s Encore, and was certainly not in the spotlight as much as the biggest music slut out there, Lil’ Wayne, or Jay-Z, the on-again off-again rap retiree. So how did Em pull it off? What is it about him that keeps his fans patiently waiting for the next track he’ll explode on?
Let’s take into account that he’s white. He put it all on the table with “White America,” letting everyone know that the blue-eyed, blonde white kids were eating his shit up because he “looked like them,” but not necessarily because they had similar upbringings. Though white is considered a majority in America, I doubt that the white kids were ballot-stuffing the Vibe poll. It’s simply not that kind of publication. I have to trust that the audience would be more balanced because the hip-hop audience itself is so widespread.
Eminem’s greatness stems from the simple fact that the dude is a genius. Upon asking a buddy of mine what he thought of Em, he replied, “…he’s funny,” and shrugged. Sure, he’s funny. He loves irony. He loves causing a scene and shocking people with his songs because that’s what his whole career has been about. Let’s face it, the odds weren’t with him from the beginning: a bleached-blonde white kid trying to make it in the rap game. He knew it, he knew he could make it, and he wanted to say a big “fuck you” to the haters. His newer stuff is hot (The Eminem Show is still one of my favorite albums), but take a minute to listen to his old shit, his freestyles. The latter is the ultimate testament to his talent.
How the hell can a high school dropout come up with this stuff off the top of his head? The vocabulary, the style and flow, the metaphors, Eminem has it all. It doesn’t matter that he’s white. He’s proven that with his success and the respect he’s gained from his Black rapping counterparts. Em has completely broken every rap barrier. So the next time you hear Lil’ Wayne, or anyone else, claim he’s the “best rapper alive,” think of Eminem, whose fans gave him the title he’d never claim for himself. Yeah, he’ll diss the guys who give him shit, but take his response to the award: “I don't think that there is any one rapper that is simply the best [though]. Everyone who was in consideration and many others are the best at certain things, and at what they do.” Slim Shady? A modest, talented genius?
I’m in love.
"I don't promote violence, I just encourage it" -Eminem, "Hazardous Youth"
