CLEVELAND - Marshall Mathers wanted to be a huge hip-hop star, a dream so preposterous, he probably should have seriously considered checking himself into a mental institution.Except one thing; it actually happened above and beyond his wildest dreams.
Mathers, the uber talented, lyrical juggernaut known popularly as Eminem changed the face of rap and hip-hop music forever. 10 years ago today, his major label debut album The Slim Shady LP was released, signaling a significant shift in the genre's history and catapulting Mathers himself to international superstardom.
Talk about a pipe dream come true.
I was never a fan of rap music. Sure, I knew who 2Pac and The Notorious B.I.G. were as well as Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Snoop Doggy Dogg, but I could not relate to the themes of violence, drug dealing and womanizing so therefore, I never purchased the music or listened to it of my own volition.
Eminem changed me.
His wildly popular single, "My Name Is..." caught my ear at the outset of 1999 as soon as I heard it. This guy was amazing and better yet, he was very funny with a very twisted sense of humor which made him instantly relatable to me. In many ways, I saw myself in him.
I even launched a rap career.
Eminem's demented mentality and humorous phraseology were the inspiration for my start in writing rap songs. I achieved an underground rap career and released 10 albums between 2002 and 2005, with another on the way this year. He came off as a smart alecky, bratty younger brother on his first album which went on to sell an impressive 4 million copies.
Eminem's obvious talent was what stood out. White rappers had long been considered a laughingstock and Vanilla Ice was the poster boy for White inferiority in this genre of music. Caucasians were seen as a joke not worthy of even mentioning unless it was for the purposes of garnering laughter.
Wordsmith Mathers shocked us all, especially with his affiliation to mega producer Dr. Dre, who was a legend of West-Coast gangsta' rap and boasted a working resume full of the biggest (black) names in hip-hop history. Dre was a co-founder of the seminal rap group N.W.A. in the late 1980's and was the signature producer for Death Row Records in the early 1990's.
Now, Dre was extolling the virtues of a pale, blonde haired, blue-eyed Detroit amateur rapper with a whiny voice that talked incessantly about doing drugs, (not selling them) and spoke of deranged violent fantasies, instead of the more traditional gun toting, bust-a-cap-in-yo-butt lyrics that had become tautological and stale in rap.
Being himself was his true appeal to me.
The fact that Eminem never tried to "be black" or act like he actually was black really resonated with me. He never said the n-word in a song, nor did he endlessly recite lines typical of black artists. Instead, he talked about his life in stunning detail and incredibly personal levels. His disdain for both his mother and daughter's mother, his fondness for doing ecstacy, mushrooms and acid and how he was "tired of being white trash, broke and always poor" as he stated on "If I Had," a wistful single from that legendary debut album.
Bottom line, Eminem may not be the greatest rapper in the game or in its history. But his superb career and pioneering efforts will always place him amongst the icons of American popular music.
Guaranteed.
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