Whatever You Say I Am_ The Life and Times of Eminem - Anthony Bozza [104]
Unlike the packed, amped club scenes in 8 Mile, Detroit hip-hop in the midnineties was spartan. “In Detroit, if you were an underground MC,” recalls Paul Rosenberg, “your crowd was mainly other MCs. Eminem would be rapping in front of a room basically of his competitors. But everybody knows who the best guys are and they still become fans of them. The best of that scene are like the rapper’s rapper.”
The scene roved around several spots, and in the tradition of Detroit cultural landmarks, they are almost all gone. Clothing designer Maurice Malone deserves a Detroit lifetime-achievement award for the Hip-Hop Shop, a boutique that turned into a hip-hop cafe on the weekends. “I used to run most of the open mikes and shit around 1993,” says Proof, “because I was the battle king. The Hip-Hop Shop was a place where you could really get your skills off. Motherfuckers came from far and wide to come there because they heard about it. We had people like Fat Joe stop through, Miilkbone, he used to stop in back in the day. Big L fucked the shit out of the Shop one day, just came in there wrecking rhymes, just for no reason.”
Around the same time, the Shelter, a room in the basement of St. Andrew’s Hall (a church turned club), hosted hip-hop Fridays full of local talent. The Shelter was the arena for the rap battles in 8 Mile; however, since it has since been redecorated, it had to be recreated in a warehouse. There was also the Ebony Showcase, another local party. The rappers and fans on the scene supported one another, but no one else in Detroit did. It was easier for Detroit rappers to get airplay on the radio in other cities than it was at home. In a reaction against the city’s hip-hop station WJLB, the Detroit Hip-Hop Coalition (a collective of hip-hop artists, managers, and local labels) picketed the station and in 2001 sent an open letter to Big Tigger, host of BET’s Rap City: Tha Bassment and the nationally syndicated radio show Live in the Den with Big Tigger:
We are quite sure that you’ve been made aware of the tensions between your new employer (JLB) and many members of the Michigan Hip-Hop community. The differences have now been well documented. For the past several years, your new employer has been very successful in the dual tasks of ignoring, snubbing, or refusing to give airplay to all but a few Detroit- or Michigan-based independent artists (regardless of requests) and offering nominal support to the metro Detroit Hip-Hop community that makes up its listening audience. This situation has become even more exasperating in recent years, chiefly because Det./Mich. artists have generated national and international acclaim.… How can a self-proclaimed “urban music” station broadcast out of Detroit (Motown) yet ignore “significant” Detroit artists? We don’t understand that one either.
In 8 Mile, the characterization of JLB falls under the fiction column, where it was portrayed as a bastion of local support. “You know, that was pointed out,” director Curtis Hanson told the Detroit Free Press. “There were mixed feelings about [the radio station], actually. Some felt that way, some didn’t.” The lack of support or curiosity may be a kind of unconscious Detroit self-hate, or just a test of its artists’ mettle. “I busted my ass,” Eminem says. “I didn’t have any money to go anywhere. There was nothing in Detroit as far as labels and shit like that to get you recognized, unless you put some independent shit out and it happens to blow up, which is rarely the case.”
“Motherfuckers don’t know, man,” Proof says. “Eminem’s song ‘Lose Yourself,’ that line about having one shot—that’s some of the best work he’s done in his life. People don’t understand, in this industry you really only do get one shot because out of sight, out of mind in this game. Detroit gave us that gusto times ten, man. It’s so hard to get a foot in the door that when you do, you fucking do that shit. You know how many people’s asses I had to whup? Niggas would not play your shit for nothin’ in this town, man. I’m talking about for nothin’, no matter