snood wrote:I think a lot of people who are so impressed by the "genius" of Eminem are blind to the extra hype he receives simply for being white. I say that because it seems that they rave on and on about him, but have never heard of Gil Scott-Heron or the Last Poets, and have never listened to a whole Tribe Album in their lives.
I think black people invented rock and roll, and Elvis got the credit.
I think it sucks when white people coopt black people's art and get adulation and fortune from it, and everyone behaves as if they invented something.
Did you actually ever sit down and listen to an Eminem album, Snood?
I'm asking cause I was saying the exact same you are now, couple years back. My upper-class horse-riding downstairs neighbour girl in the student house got all into Eminem, and I was - yawn - come on - he just got famous cause he's white, when he's just redoing the same stuff Ice-T or NWA was doing ten bleedin' years ago. And if you want real power, forget the gangsta stuff, put on a PE album.
Seemed like an obvious enough conclusion to draw, right - what, with the history of the thing, like you already mention, Elvis stealing the best of black music of his time, smoothing it down to a level that white people would be able to swallow, and bingo. Sure wouldnt be the first time.
But I definitely changed my mind. Kind of not by choice: Anastasia was all into Eminem (see above), and she was playing it all the time - at first it drove me crazy, I come home from work, Eminem's blasting, the mood is loud and angry - ****. He started really grating me, I still have an acute negative emotional reaction to some of his tracks. But, it being so up close and Stasia being so into it, I had to sit myself down and just actually
listen to it - look into what was happening, here. I looked up the lyrics and listened to the same tracks again, lyrics in hand - and it showed me so much. I got impressed. This guy's no ordinary rapper.
What I like most about him is that he went
beyond so many of the stereotype formats that'd gotten to reign over hip-hop by the mid-/late nineties. He didnt just come with more of the - you know - my homies are better than yours, a gangsta's life on the street's tough, lemme sing about my heroic ghetto mum, the police is down on us all, f*ck 'em" stuff - I mean, all that needed to be said too, I remember how hard-hitting
Boyz N The Hood was - but it'd become cookie-cutter staple fare by then. And he came and just got up close and
personal. Telling a life history that didnt just offer yet another prototype, another rapper typecasting himself rather than showing who he was - instead, he came out with all the contradictions he had in himself. He wasn't just angry at "the system", but at himself, the rest of the world, his mum and ex-wife - what rapper before him had hung out his dirty linen to dry like that? That took guts. And he wasnt just angry, there were all these conflicting emotions and characters, him kinda role-playing each of them, loving his baby girl while wanting her mother
dead - guy who's fighting
himself as much as anything, and he doesn't give a f*ck if we all see it.
We had a BIG discussion on Eminem versus Tupac on the
Foshizzle my nizzle thread, comparing lyrics and everything - and Eminem's are just a level more
complex.
I havent got a clue what the reference to A Tribe Called Quest was about (if thats what it was) - they've got like the very opposite style of Eminem. Also good, no doubt - but totally different. As far as The Last Poets go, they deserve respect, for sure - they blazed the trail. No question. And Gil Scott-Heron is a musical hero. But you cant listen to Eminem and say, he's just repeating what they did. It's a wholly different beast! We're what, thirty years on now! Only thing I can think of he's still got in common with the Last Poets is that he's rapping. So unless you're basically saying all hip-hop is the same and thus all hip-hoppers are automatically just ripping off The Original One, your take is just too facile. (Well, if you're saying
that, it's too facile too, obviously.)
Basically think you're making it too easy for yourself here, Snood.
( 
muwahahaha).
