Week 3: Examing a White Rapper

I remember the first time I ever heard an Eminem song; I was eleven years old and my mom was driving me home from school. “My Name Is” came on the radio, full of bleeped-out words and a strange, nasally voice rapping. The song was unlike anything I had ever heard in the era of the Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys. I turned up the radio to listen more closely, but my mom quickly changed the station. “I’m not playing that junk in my car,” she warned me, “and I don’t want you listening to it at home, either.”

But within a few weeks all the kids at my school—black and white—were singing it, rapping the forbidden words on the playground, reciting the catchy chorus as they waited in line. And of course, since Eminem’s music was forbidden, I wanted to listen to it even more. When “The Real Slim Shady” came out shortly after, my two southern Baptist best friends and I got our hands on a copy, and learned every single word by heart. We did the same thing with the next few huge Eminem hits.

I grew up and stopped being an Eminem fan, mainly because as I gradually understood the lyrics better and became familiar with Eminem as a public figure, I didn’t like what I saw. I have been able to enjoy offensive music in the past, but to me, a song fantasizing about killing your mother or ex-girlfriend—even if not meant seriously—crosses the line. I also hated Eminem’s criticism of artists like Christina Aguilera and the homophobia in his songs. However, when I read Toure and Carl Hancock Rux’s pieces about Eminem, I pulled up some old Eminem songs on YouTube and listened to them for the first time in years.

I agree with Rux that white people like listening to Eminem because he allows them to enjoy the “hip-hop experience,” or their idea of what gangster life is like, but using a white guy as a mouthpiece. Listening to a white rapper is still “cool,” but it removes the white guilt that comes with being a fan of—and trying to identify with—black hip-hop. People also love the controversy Eminem causes, and the way he manipulates his public persona for attention.

Ultimately, though, I think two things made Eminem a successful hip-hop artist. First, like Rux says, he did something that hadn’t really been done—and even then not as well—since Vanilla Ice. He was a controversial white rapper. Eminem, in a way, has more credibility than Vanilla Ice; he actually grew up in poverty in an urban neighborhood, and he was “socialized as black,” as Rux puts it. But his second, and more important, strength is that he is truly a talented artist—in spite of how offensive his material can be. He has a gift for words, and his songs are the type that gets stuck in your head for days. So although I no longer consider myself an Eminem fan, I appreciate his skill and his highly unusual contribution to hip-hop.