The Real Slim Shady?

Do you like Eminem?   I like Eminem.  Since I was like 14, probably younger, he's probably been the main artist I've had rapping in my ears.  Whilst somewhat more recent discoveries (like Atmosphere, Sage Francis, Aesop Rock etc., for instance) may have highlighted the different constituents which, together, emerge as 'truly skilled rap' (lyrical sophistication; social perceptiveness; intelligence; originality; emotionality, etc.), Eminem still for me retains a deeply personal attachment and affinity.  Some of 'those cited' are probably better than him at some aspects of rap, yes; but where Eminem really excels - where he properly shines - is his sheer lyrical agility.   Like Rakim (apparently the person who he said he tried to base his signature flow on), and Nas, as well, his competence, simply as a lyracist, is staggering; second-to-none, actually.  Jay-Z et al?  Their rap is ok.  Its industrial rap; commercial;  they're ok rappers; they are probably quite good at 'rapping' in the limited, conventional sense, insofar as staying within the predictable remit that rap tends to offer up - suffice to say, innovation is not really one of their buzzwords (read: profit generation).  In terms of their their sheer lyrical skill - delivery, actual construction of rhymes - their expertise is really quite limited..

Now this is all fair and well.  I like Eminem lots and lots; he's a great rapper, to say the least.  But the point of this post, and indeed what I was gonna say in the first place, was that I have a problem with Eminem recently.. 

Rewind to 1996; Eminem was Infinite.  If you think he's a dazzlingly good lyracist from his later work, you haven't heard Infinite.  15 years ago, and without any hyperbole whatsoever, it was his rap - perhaps even rap generally - probably at its very best.  Authentic, straight-up, lo-fi; fantastic.

Then, with the signing by Dre, things changed a bit.   They were still pretty cool - the Slim Shady and Marshall Mathers LPs are great albums - though they admittedly lacked the sheer (lyrical) audacity, the spark, of Infinite.   But he kept going; all the way through to the Eminem show.  What was it which made his raps still pretty good?  I'm hardly an accomplished critic, a music aficionado, or any some-such, but I think his stuff there was pretty good mainly because it still felt like a person was writing the songs; i.e., the songs were relatable; expository.  Earlier, he was rapping about (psychologically) having fun with himself, (bluntly) how fucked up his persona is, and how strange people are, as well as their (funny) probable reactions to this or that persona in his armory.  It was sparkling subversive comedy which belied a real humility and a genuine lyrical talent.  Later, in the Eminem show, he lost the outageousness a bit, but managed to replace it with a really just generally really 'nice' emotional maturity; the 'growth' over the 3/4 albums seemed apparent; first, audacious; later, outragous; lastly, emotional (cf. Hallie's Song; Soldier; Till I Collapse, etc).  It felt human, and accessible, and well-told, and - very good, actually.

But in the thereafter?  Encore and beyond?  Oh dear.  Eminem's sparkle descended into oblivion, and it seemed as though he sort of lost his artistic trajectory.  The general artistic outlook an album has, and the presumable tone each of the tracks within it, usually tend to follow and converge along some sort of linear, particular, outlook, with this may or may not being hinted at in the album title.    It is this artistic outlook, this guiding sense of style, which, after the Eminem show, seems as though it slipped away.  The result is his subsequent albums - Encore and beyond - not actually being 'about' much.  Perhaps in the superficial sense they are 'about' something, where say a banana is indeed 'about' a colour by virtue of it being 'yellow' (as opposed to the deeper, more significant level of it actually being 'a fruit' - intrinsic property rather than its apparent ones), but not really.  As a result, the work was sapped of all the genuine emotionality which really made it attractive to me initially.  Eminem started getting irate; the comedy went from flippant to just silly, foregoing much of his artististic coherence in doing so.  Most of the tracks on Relapse are just hollow.  They're forgettable.  What songs were they?   Medicine Ball?  We Made You?  The names are forgettable, the content incoherent.

What is it like now?  No doubt you have noticed, but Eminem's raps have no personality.  Before he was a thoughtful, at-times flippant (though only just for the fun of it), sensitive rapper, looking from the inside out.  This lasted to the Eminem show, and material similar to that - hence the moving nature of songs like Sing for the Moment, Cleaning out my Closet, Hallie's Song, Soldier, etc. etc.  These were heartfelt stories; and you could that tell listening to them.   That's what made them good. 

Now?  Now its awful!  It seems like he's doing the very opposite to what made him initially attractive to me.  Before he was on the periphery of rap; always and adamant; scorchingly talented yet defiantly external.  He didn't show up to this or that award ceremony; he thought they were silly.  He was an anamoly, and a damn good one at that; decidedly mainstream, though also individual to the last.  But now..!   Now, in the songs from his latest album, 'Recovery' (apparently (re)named as such because it was realised as being a departure from the latest dark but basically shapeless endeavor, Relapse) he's rapping about Rockefeller, 'Kanye', 'Lil Wayne'.  Yuk.  I was very glad when I first heard he wasn't in fact retiring; but, there is something to be said for quitting while you're ahead...   Now he's just spewing out mainstream irrelevance which people like and eat up, quite simply, 'because it's Eminem'. 

No.  It's decidedly not Eminem; at least it is not what he used to be.  His music has lost all of its emotionality, and that's for me what made it meaningful and interesting in the first place.  He managed to tell a good story whilst keeping it lyrically respectable, to say the least.  Now its like he's not so much bothered with the first bit and is just spitting everywhere, experimenting, apparently, simply with raw lyrical pizzazz.

..But its not even very good.  Lyrical experimentation at its best was Infinite.  It could be said that, because there was no 'Eminem / Slimshady / Marshall Mathers' pretentious quadtyc, his music was so much more authentic, with him just as a guy, off the street, spittin into a mic, speculating, ruminating, experimenting; a talented young rapper, with high ambitions.

Later, history was not so kind.   'Don't get me wrong'; there were probably one or two genuinely good tracks on Relapse - one of which I remember being 'Same Song and Dance'; an intriguing foray into the mind of a serial rapist who raped then murdered his victims. This was Marshall Mathers LP, Kim, all over again - unashamedly experimental, dark, writhing and twisted; brave, bold, and very interesting indeed; the production and the content tied together seamlessly; eerie, psychological, deranged; it was quite the cerebral feast, actually.  'The thing is though', aside from that and perhaps one or two other songs on Relapse, Relapse and its successor, 'Recovery' (formerly 'Relapse 2') seem dredged in a self-important, supersaturated tone of the hypermainstream, which basically says, I've been making music for ages, you still fucking like it, haha; isn't that funny; now I'm working with other rappers (with him being perceptively aware of the reception of his later work and mocking it anyway; very smart). 

No, it isn't smart; its easy to not be emotional in rap; its easy, largely meaningless, and (accordingly) rubbish.  The emotionality, the genuine 'feeling' that was so present in his earlier work - or even just the light-hearted funniness he decided to (for the fun of it) lace it with, was great.   Now?  Dear o dear...  there's just no driving shape to the material he writes anymore; he seems to have gone on this Relapse-thing about presumably how fucked up and angry he is and how he's gonna lash out and just 'write what's on his mind', because, obviously, spilling out all the 30-something torturous angst is what makes it so intense and raw in the first place. 

Please.  'Raw' is not a good adjective; you don't want to eat a raw steak - those who 'say shit' about how far out you are for eating it, how much the 'rawness' brings with it a quintessential substantiality, and how any of that 'cooking business' ruins that almost primordial essentiality of that ol steak are quite conclusively talking bollocks.  You cook your food; you don't serve it 'raw' and make up some culinary rhetoric about its inherent respectability and ruggedness and how much more desirable that is to the alternative; because it isn't.  Bizarrely, it seems Eminem's work follows similar suit.

I don't buy it.  The old Eminem - funny, observant, talented and very much un-self important - has decidedly gone.  He's not dreaming of making it big (Infinite, Slim Shady LP), or even worried about the consequences himself of doing so (Eminem Show).  Now he is, quite simply, unapologetically been devoured and gobbled up by the mainstream..  It's like Dizzee Rascal, except obviously Eminem is much more talented: a young, angry dude, having enough with society and its normalities, decided to utilise their talent and preach his observations, wonderings and ruminations - reporting both those on others as well as those on themselves.  And the initial material is fantastic.

Then though, with the gradual accumulation of more wealth, and more status, both 'artists', inexorably, sold out.   Have you heard 'Dizzee Rascal' now (often in his hayday he was compared with another 'grime' rapper, Wiley; but, for the record, Wiley is just awful)?   In 'Boy in da Corner', DR was rapping about the social rollercoaster of school life; respect; playground mating rituals (I Luv You); the development of a bubbling sexuality, far ahead of intellectual maturational development (Jezebel) - and the interesting consequences of this - and others.  Have you heard the lyrics on either of those tracks?  Again; it was thoughtful, skilled; real.  If you have any time for rap, at all, these are both tracks you must listen to, and have time for.   ..  But now?  'Dizzee' raps about nothing.  The music - both with DR as well as Eminem - has lost its specificity; its character; its exclusivity.  In the old music, life was lived and reported.  Now, things have shifted; rapping is no longer reported from observation and experience (also a la Eminem), but from silly ideas; vomiting its reach across some overarching aim of appealing generality to the masses.  Unfortunately for the deeply interested few, generality comes monotony; in either rapper doing so, any prior actual substance in their music is now completely watered down.

'Indeed', popular rap, either side of the Atlantic, in spite of its 'street talking' street ego with certainly no time for academia, seems ironically dogged by something of a theoretical paradox.  Namely, the 'thought experiment' of sorts being with rappers: how can they be so 'angry', when they can buy every house in their old 'hood' several times over?    Lil' Wayne (awful name) retorted to such a problem by saying he was 'just so fucking pissed off he wanted to drop the world on someone's head'; and proceeded to make a very good song out of it, actually (the emotional intensity - and thus its authenticity, or reality, was very good indeed).  But, ultimately, he evaded the question, and thus the problem.    Eminem seems to be attempting to do the same; somehow, he's still angry.  He talks about 'the past few albums', and does apologise repeatedly, to his credit (or detriment), I suppose; but its an empty apology.  There's all talk and no actual decent, SLOW, thoughtful, lyrical material to back it up.   Eminem seems to be an MC who's gone to seed; but is, apparently, very aware of that, and that is actually the point, and he uses it as his main ammo in the majority of his raps, thanksverymuch...

I don't like it; its just loud noise.  This is the point.   It's all so rushed; there's no thought behind the raps - where before the lyrical agility was excellent and fitted perfectly with the actual semantics of his lines, now its just run amock.  Eminem's songs aren't carefully, meticulously thought through anymore.  There's little to no substance in his work; there's nothing to listen to.  Just 'beef steaks on floors' (I quote), how fucked up he now is over his 'best friend's death', how he 'almost attacked 'Kanye' and 'Lil Wayne' (and how very sorry he was that he did that in the first place), blah blah blah.    Where before Eminem was rapping within a solid story, a real emotionality, and genunie skill which didn't encroach on the subtlety of the material, now there is simply just no guidance.  He just spits spits spits substanceless, self-involved chatter, even attacking 'the critics' on one track from his latest album.  Its a terrible defense really, and a silly move, regardless, which just acts to highlight what he's now become, substantiating the same crtics he rallied against a priori.  

A smart, good rapper wouldn't 'hit back at the haters'; if they were to address it at all, they'd comment on their view, and perhaps argue that they think their 'hate' is mistaken and misplaced, and / or how such comments are representative of society overall -- or just relate it to something bigger than defending their own petty reactionary ego - 'rep'.   There's no need to 'hit back at us', Eminem.  We're not attacking you; we're just let down by what you've become and miss what you used to be.

His music no longer interests me really, and that is very unfortunate indeed, given that I largely grew up to his raps throughout my young-teen years.

And so, without falling prey to quite the cliche - will the real slim shady please stand up?