Julius, if we all liked the same thing, it would be boring. I disagree with your assessment of Em's music and his lyrics.
What else to I listen to? I have listened to it all from the beginning, as I was living in a very urban section of Kalamazoo when rap hit the airwaves. I wouldn't term G S-H rap, by the way, although I think he is the real first rapper. Anyway, currently in my personal heavy rotation is Ludacris, Xzibit, Jay-Z and Obie Trice and I rather resent the implication that I only like the rapper who is white. That I do resent.. Chris Rock's joke is funny because of the truth in it. Eminem, in my opinion, isn't fronting, but he does flip it all right back, hence the quote you make from "Without Me." Anyone can make a movie about anything, yes. So you use that generalization to rip a movie you have not seen. And you call me delusional. And obviously I cannot speak for the black community and I do apologize for sounding like I was, if that is how it came across. While my home is right now in rural western Michigan, I spend a lot of time in Detroit, Chicago, and my old neighborhood in Kalamazoo. In my experience, let me say as a qualifier, in my personal and direct experience, the African American community here has embraced Em as real. Perhaps it is because Michigan is his home state and he is known here well. The wonderful thing about Eminem is that he has brought audiences together that have been separate for way too many years. When I saw Em in concert this summer, it was far and away the most mixed audience I have been in since Sly and the Family Stone and that was in 1970. It was good to see such a mixed audience again. You may call it delusional, call me delusional as you did, my friend, but the delusion is in thinking that music cannot bring people together. The people here that I know, my experience of the black community, is that Em is the man. Again, this may be a Michigan thing. The charge that Em is fronting to rip off black music does offend me because I have following this guy's career for a number of years and I simply don't see it. Make that charge against Pat Boone, against Vanilla Ice, against a lot of folks, it would be true. But there is something different about Eminem, and that is my opinion, based on my experience, and I am sticking with it. And maybe his legendary (in Michigan) generosity with those with whom he came up with has an impact on my opinion. He hasn't gone white. Dre is out for making money, sure. Aren't we all. He isn't going to produce someone with no talent. Dre has not been Svengali to a witless talentless white boy to front for sales, he took on a very talented rapper who happens to be white. Dre doesn't need a white rapper to make money, if that is his sole goal. Nelly makes his damned good living off of suburban whites, and Tag Team and Sir Mixalot have certainly shown there are megabucks to be made from rap marketed to white kids by black rappers. All rap sales have been 75% white - Tupac and Biggy knew that too, and a part of the whole thug thing was to make the rap the exotic and dangerous lure for white kids. Let's keep it real here. Your comment on Alicia Keys - that same point is by Obie Trice on the 8 Mile soundtrack about Lauryn Hill, "she stopped making music with beats...". It just so happens that Em is one hell of a rapper and he is white. The surprising thing may have been that it has taken so long for a white rap star to emerge, given that Blondie was rapping back in the early 80s. It took so long, I think, because the one who was to break through was going to be damned, damned good, and Em is. And hell, Julius, all American music as we know it comes from black sources. Name it -rock, jazz, tell em an American music form that doesn't have African American roots. Can no white person play jazz? can no white person sing the blues? (Well, maybe not well) Can no white person sing Johnny B. Goode? At what point does it cease being race music and become part of the culture for all? When can a white person rap? Was it the same crime when Joni sang Mingus? How long do you keep the music limited to one racial group? If music doesn't broaden us and bring people together then what the fuck good is it? The real problem, that neither one of us responded to, was the person who posted this week that rap wasn't music at all, which is a huge denial of a music form that arose from the streets. That to me was racist. That's where your argument may be, not with me, I humbly suggest. I am offering a validation of rap as real music. Hey, when Mary J. Blige sings, I don't think race, I think, raw, pure, total talent. I get the same feeling from Eminem. And the same was true for Elvis. Except Elvis left the black community behind. Em has continued to work with the people he knew in the day, His values are old school. He has not gone white. He is still hood. Whenever someone says, "Have you stopped to think..." I know the insult is there, you are saying, i don't think. Hell, Julius, I am a 50 year old gay man who has seasons tickets for the Lyric Opera and spend time on the streets, I've been to street corner battles, I have lived in the hood , I am not predisposed to rap, but I heard it all the time from my neighbors, my clients, my friends, and I got into it. I can never be black, but I can be very intentional and serious about the music I like and the music I tout and the genius that I recognize. The best bass in the last century was not some European star, it was Paul Robeson. One can argue Leotyne Price at the top of her field. Music transcends race. the best rapper is white. And in the end, I am sick unto death of the old tired charges against Em's lyrics. Mike in barcelona has just shown us a whole slew of music that contains violent images. I am about to see Wagner's Die Walkure which features murder, incest, and racism. Is it a great classic of western music or do we judge it by Eminem standards? Em would win that - look to all of the words on all the album before you pick and pull out of context. Yeah, Stan is a violent lunatic who desperately needs help and kills his girlfriend - and Stan is not the hero, in Em's own voice he warns that the guy needs help, that he needs to control to anger, that he has to stop acting out - Today in my office was a young woman beaten by her boyfriend, badly, this woman a member of the wedding party of Gage's mother, and I know that the violence against Robin was done by some Stan-like idiot, the whole scene probably sounded like the track Kim - and I wish I could grab that fucker and make him listen to Eminem who tells the world that people who commit violence against women are losers, that it hs to stop, that it is sickness, it must stop. Oh, but those anti-violence lyrics, Em's real words on that subject are never broadcast because then Lynne Chenny and Tipper Gore and Joe Lieberman and all the watchdogs of our morals from the Christian right wouldn't be able to pillory Eminem - who is a target because he is white, they haven't the guts to take on Ludacris and risk charges of racism so they go after the white guy - and demonize by pulling out a line here, a line there, out of context. You have bought into the American Family Association Christian right Lynne Cheney fund raising cries of alarm about bad, bad Eminem. Em opened his last tour with clips of all the congressional hearing where he was denounced over and over and over for the same tired old things. (The New Yorker suggests their real opposition to Em is in his bridging racial barriers in a way that is not Bush like.) The irony is, everyone worked up over Em, and maybe they should have been a bit more worried about Al Queda... but that doesn't get nice coverage on the evening news until after September 11th. Attacking Em did. In the end, Julius, you may despise Em for any reason. I can't really get into jazz or country. We all have our things where it doesn't work for us. And we haven't always had the deepest and lengthiest of conversations, but we have always been cool together. I do resent the implication of my having a preference for Em because he is white - hell, I have seen Xzibit and Ludacris and Executioner and Bionic Jive too, this past summer, and seen my share of my black rappers, who I like a lot, and I saw the Rolling Stones who made their fortune mining black music. But the Stones have done it with an all white band. Em continues to work with his homies. Let's get real as you say, Despise Em for whatever reason you want. And if your obviously far more real experience in your community brings you into contact with people who feel differently than my contacts, maybe again, it is a Michigan thing, or just that I am hanging with people with whom I share common opinions, as you are. But I stand by my opinion that the man is a genius, a master, a person who transcends in his word play and in his music. And I respect him because he always credits those with whom he has developed his craft, In his own world, he has street cred. At least that is so. For the rest, again, if we all liked the same things, how fucking dull the world would be, and the ability to exchange the frankest of opinions in this forum is a testimony to the strength of this community and as you disagree with me, so I disagree with you, but i trust we remain embraced in friendship for the things we hold in common and our common love of life. I bear you no ill will Julius for taking me to task, I have responded, and as they say, Peace Out! Vince
