Whatever You Say I Am_ The Life and Times of Eminem - Anthony Bozza [123]
I think this contradiction more than anything is at the heart of America’s love for Eminem. We’re a country heading toward a greater division between rich and poor, where race politics are unpopular and racial identity is as mutable and multifaceted as the stew of cultural influences informing popular music. We are a country in which youth culture is consumed by parents, adolescence extends into adulthood, and upper-middle-class kids speak the slang of the inner cities. Alienation cuts across all sets of our society, and hip-hop speaks to kids of all ages and circumstances. Whether this is the dawn of the kind of understanding and unity that can change the fabric of society or an extension of post-9/11 nationalism is not yet clear, but America desperately wants to celebrate our commonalities, disallow our differences, and move forward.
“So much stuff is getting dragged into this phenomenon surrounding Eminem,” says Sasha Frere-Jones. “You have to step way back and remove him, even take him out of it. Obviously, this is a huge moment for race relations, but it’s kind of hard to see how. I also think that everyone who feels like they’re losing their edge, like a lot of the older people who are into Eminem, think it is their one surefire way to not be wack.”
It certainly is a moment for race relations; and there, too, Eminem represents a unification that may also cause division—a troubling contradiction. He is an unassailable talent and an anomaly, the one white rapper who both got it right and did it his way; the first to eclipse or equal all of the MCs of his day. Eminem is, like Tiger Woods and Venus and Serena Williams, a brilliant, gifted exception who is making history. His wit, rhyme style, and lyrical skill are a contribution to hip-hop culture, a cinematic, narrative voice in that canon. But unlike Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters, three minority players in games that have traditionally been dominated by whites, Eminem is a white person who is dominating a traditionally black game and garnering praise from those who most likely wouldn’t want to hear the same from a black man. Though he’s clearly no friend to the system and has lived and identified with a life more black than white, Eminem’s achievement is a bittersweet victory to some. Whereas Woods and the Williams sisters represent a rebel victory, a toppling of the traditional power structure, and a reversal of race roles, Eminem represents a reversal of race roles and a toppling of one of the only visible power structures (along with professional sports) that is dominated by black men, at a time when more black men than anyone else are in prison. Ours is an era in which racial-identity politics have fallen out of favor, while most of the social conditions that birthed those issues remain. Eminem’s gifts as a rapper, his album sales, the critical praise he’s received, and his portrayal of the hip-hop world in 8 Mile inspire mixed feelings, begrudging acceptance, and anxiety about his influence on the culture among some black hip-hop fans. Celebrating Eminem, for some, is not simple. Perhaps it is for this reason that only four of the sixteen African-American critics, academics, and artists whom I approached for interviews for this book agreed to talk to me. Many did not respond at all to requests made over a period of months. Others enthusiastically consented to the interview but did not respond to any further and persistent efforts to arrange it. “That’s not surprising,” says Farai Chideya. “I think that black people who consistently write about this stuff get tired of nobody listening to them, because mainstream audiences