Eminem

AJ Update:

He is officially late for his birthday!!
We read online that watching something funny enough to make you pee you pants may help... it didn't. Thanks anyway Jo Koy

Eminem:

When it comes to role models, Marshall Mathers would seem the least likely of personas to win any awards. However, in a age where glossing over the truth is all the rage, here stood a man who had the balls to hold up a mirror to society. When no one paid attention, he dared to turn it on himself. I won't pretend to know who he really is, but in any case, it has always been his lyrics that have been the inspiration anyway so let us look at the articulate evolution of one of the most philosophical fathers of my time.

"I lay awake and strap myself in the bed
Put a bulletproof vest on and shoot myself in the head (BANG!)
I'm steaming mad (Arrrggghhh!)
And by the way when you see my dad? (Yeah?)
Tell him that I slit his throat, in this dream I had"

My Name Is
The Slim Shady LP

I must admit, I can't say whether I would let my 15 year old listen to Eminem. I guess it would vary depending on his level of maturity. As for me, it was a light into my own life. If you listen to the whole album you will realize that it is dedicated to all of the bullies (both real and psychological) he encountered growing up. This particular lyric from his first major album articulated two important points for me. The first, that each of us are always in the best position to sabotage ourselves. We can protect ourselves from multifarious attacks from others from many angles, but each of us knows how to hurt ourselves better than anyone else ever could. The second part is admittedly extreme, but I took it metaphorically. While rappers and musical artist of all types got mad at the industry, the police or the man, here was someone directing his anger at the source. His father abandoned him so why should he take it out on others? Here was a highly intelligent person, as was evident by his vocabulary and structure of poetry, but lacked a moral compass that pointed that same direction as everyone else. While I would later grow to appreciate this variation, it also impressed upon me the importance of parents to lead by example.

"When you don't give a f***, when you won't just put up
With the bulls*** they pull, cause they full of s*** too
When a dude's gettin bullied and shoots up his school
And they blame it on Marilyn (on Marilyn).. and the heroin
Where were the parents at? And look where it's at
Middle America, now it's a tragedy"


The Way I Am
Marshall Mathers LP

This one, though it highlights the parents again, played a different role for me. Could someone like Eminem inspire these kids? In his previous album he ranted on and on about taking revenge on bullies. Obviously this was the perspective the mainstream media took. But there were problems with this view. The columbine kids didn't target bullies, they were taking their rage from bullies out on people at random. This highlighted that the problem of violence in schools was much more complex than spawning from a single source. And most importantly, could these thing be happening because we were to blind that such things don't happen in middle-upper America? Then again, when I turn on Real World or any of the other emerging reality shows (based on middle-upper America), all I saw was drama and violence over things as trivial as taking someone's hairbrush. There was no teamwork or self sacrifice or any other the other virtues that we as a society have a responsibility to pass on to our youth. This is when he first began to hold to mirror up to us. We didn't listen.

"It's funny
I remember back one year when daddy had no money
Mommy wrapped the Christmas presents up
And stuck 'em under the tree and said some of 'em were from me
Cause daddy couldn't buy 'em
I'll never forget that Christmas I sat up the whole night crying
Cause daddy felt like a bum, see daddy had a job
But his job was to keep the food on the table for you and mom"

Mockingbird
Encore

When the public refused to see its own reflection in the mirror he held up, he turned it on his self. Here his talents really began to shine through. Here, after two albums of trash talking his on and off wife, he acknowledges that through all of the crap they've gone through, he isn't completely blind to the good that spawned from their relationship. First, despite all the issues he would take up with Kim, he mentions over and over again that Hailee Jade is worth all of the issues that have spawned what was otherwise a doomed relationship with Kim. From here on out, he would turn his attention to working out his personal issues public through his music. Whether intentional or not, it would do the double duty of forcing him to shed illusions as the public could see him in a fuller light and at the same time, we might just see the parallels between him and us.

Every song on:
Relapse

This album was an eye opener. It was sad for me and many of my fellow Eminem fans. Cracked out on all kinds of drugs, we got to see that talent alone would not see one through life. That humans do not actually have tiger blood, that drugs really do ruin lives when done in excess. Fortunately, after some time to reflect, we would have his magnum opus...

"It was my decision to get clean, I did it for me
Admittedly, I probably did it subliminally
for you, so I could come back a brand new me you helped see me through
And don't even realize what you did, believe me you
I been through the ringer, but they could do little to the middle finger
I think I got a tear in my eye, I feel like the king of
my world, haters can make like bees with no stingers
and drop dead, no more beef flingers
No more drama from now on, I promise
to focus solely on handlin my responsibilities as a father
So I solemnly swear to always treat this roof, like my daughters
and raise it, you couldn't lift a single shingle on it!
Cause the way I feel, I'm strong enough to go to the club
or the corner pub, and lift the whole liquor counter up
Cause I'm raising the bar
I'd shoot for the moon but I'm too busy gazin at stars
I feel amazing and I'm not afraid."

Not Afraid
Recovery

There's little need to explain this one, but let me say this: No more can you judge a book by its cover can you predict its end by its beginning. He had a talent and like all talents he could use it for the benefit of others or himself. I think this anthem song of his tells which he choose. If his lyrics are any reflection of who Marshall Mathers really is, then he is a father first, a friend second and mentor by accident.

~ Namaste ~