Em's Music Is His Therapy

Published: Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Many MCs use the high word count of a typical rap track only to show off rhyming skills and rhythmic flow.
Not Eminem, though.
Marshall Mathers' pale skin may be what we first saw, but it was the disturbingly personal anecdotes entwined within his technically perfect rhymes that truly made him stand out.
Eminem's discography reads like an autobiography, from his most recent solo song, No Apologies, off the just-released compilation Eminem Presents the Re-Up, to his introductory track, 1999's My Name Is.
Amidst the catchy beats and plentiful jokes on his inaugural radio smash, Eminem offhandedly mentions his mother's drug habit, dreams of killing his absentee father and discusses suicide. Elsewhere on his debut, The Slim Shady LP, he brings up childhood bullying and depicts the fictional murder of his ex-wife, Kim, on the controversial 97 Bonnie & Clyde ("There goes mama, splashin' in the water/no more fightin' with dad, no more restraining order").
On his followup, the operatic, Grammy-winning The Marshall Mathers LP, he verbally murders her again on "Kim" and drops an Oedipal rap about raping his own mother on Kill You, both of which were cited in an attempt to bar Eminem from entering Ontario, though their deranged delivery reveals a more complex story than the lyric sheet.
Obviously, most of his raps were not true to life--or at least his real life. Instead, Mathers split his personality into three Freudian parts -- Marshall the superego, Eminem the ego and Slim Shady the misogynistic, homophobic and utterly unrestrained id.
But alongside his well-discussed mother/wife/ daughter hang-ups is a continuing inner conflict over his success, which ranges from the proud boasts of his latest single, You Don't Know to, more often, paranoia about his celebrity status, which began with the Marshall Mathers title track ("Last year I was nobody/This year I'm sellin' records/Now everybody wants to come around like I owe 'em something") and his most-acclaimed song, Stan, about a deranged fan.
By 2002's Say Goodbye To Hollywood Eminem was back to contemplating suicide or, at least, retiring from rap: "I don't wanna quit, but shit, I feel like this is it/for me to have this much appeal like this is sick/This is not a game, this fame."
Instead, Em returned in 2004 with Encore and, unlike his previous efforts, it was deemed an artistic failure, especially the rote lead single Just Lose It. But it appeared to suck on purpose as a message to the fans who ate up his radio singles and therefore created his celebrity.
That idea was bolstered by the album artwork and title track, both of which depicted the rapper shooting his audience and then killing himself. But this seemed less a cry for help then a meta-complaint about his demanding audience and, perhaps, a retirement of his Slim Shady persona.
Eminem next released the greatest-hits Curtain Call (originally rumoured to be titled The Funeral), which included the new song When I'm Gone. Once again, he worries fame has ruined his chance for a happy family and kills himself: "I hear applause, all this time I couldn't see/How could it be, that the curtain is closing on me/I turn around, find a gun on the ground, cock it/Put it to my brain and scream 'Die Shady' and pop it."
Since then, his life has gone considerably more downhill. He quit a tour to go into rehab for pill addiction, re-married and re-divorced his wife, and his longtime best friend Proof was shot to death in a Detroit nightclub.
But guess who's back? Though his new album, The Re-Up, is really a mixed tape featuring his Shady Records artists, such as 50 Cent and D12, it does conclude with the solo song No Apologies.
Like a mournful Lose Yourself, it runs on Em's impeccable momentum and wordplay, but he sounds more conflicted than ever. He tries some Slim Shady-style jokes, but he knows they don't fit anymore.
Eminem says he won't quit until he stops selling -- though on the The Re-Up he warns "this right here very well could be the last rap I ever do spit" -- but still frets that an infatuated fan will assassinate him. More intriguingly, he explicitly states "this song isn't for you, it's for me," and really, that's what most of his best work has been -- musical therapy, putting his anger issues, his self-doubts, his love and fear and jealousy on wax.
"I'd be a savage beast if I ain't have this outlet to salvage me inside," he raps, but more astonishing is his subsequent admission, "I'm really a sheep in wolf's clothing."
So where does he go from here? Despite constant hints, it's unlikely the rapper will retire anytime soon. Mathers will have his triumphs and missteps, both artistically and personally, but his legacy is sound because his body of work is the opposite of pop music's universally applicable norm. Eminem's oeuvre is psychologically specific to one man and oh, what a long, strange head-trip it's been.