When he wasn't waxing poetic about strangling his wife or raping his mother, he was lambasting gays and pop princess Christina Aguilera. Satan at open mike night? No, it's 28-year-old rap superstar Eminem (né Marshall Mathers), whose May release, The Marshall Mathers LP, has had repercussions throughout the music industry and far beyond. It was hailed almost universally by critics like Neil Strauss of The New York Times, who called Eminem "a master rhymer, convincing actor, stinging critic of critics and vicious prankster." Fans agreed, scooping up 1.7 million copies of the CD—the follow-up to his Grammy-winning 1999 debut, The Slim Shady LP—in its first week. "The kids listening to my music get the joke," Eminem assured Rolling Stone in August. "They can tell when I'm serious and when I'm not. They can tell the entertainment of it."
Not surprisingly, legions of parents, educators and lawmakers failed to see the humor in the ninth-grade dropout's ferocious lyrics, which are routinely sanitized for play on MTV and radio stations. (Among the album's offerings: "Pants or dress—hate fags? The answer's yes," and "Quit crying bitch, why do you always make me shout at you?") The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation decried "the most blatantly offensive, homophobic lyrics [we've] seen in many years." Lynne Cheney, the former head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, testified before Congress in September that Eminem "promotes violence of the most degrading kind against women." Detractors also point to Eminem's recent highly publicized brushes with the law. Facing felony weapons and assault charges for a pair of June confrontations near his suburban Detroit home, the man who calls his background "the epitome of white trash" is also fighting two defamation suits (totaling $11 million) filed by his mother, Debbie Mathers, 45, for portraying her as a drug-addled, negligent parent. (Eminem says he has never met his father.) The singer is also in the midst of an acrimonious divorce from his wife, Kim, 25, mother of his daughter Hailie Jade, 5 (on whom, by many accounts, he dotes). All will likely become grist for the next opus. "Whether during good times, bad times, or even the worst of times," says Eminem in his just published book, Angry Blonde, "I've used the pen to express myself. At times (especially within the last year) it's gotten me into a lot of trouble."
Your Reaction
