Whatever You Say I Am_ The Life and Times of Eminem - Anthony Bozza [24]
In a hip-hop edition of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which rappers or their personas were the players, Puck, the comedy’s fairy instigator, could be no one but Slim Shady. The comparison is valid when you closely examine Eminem’s use of Slim Shady as a humorous device. Slim Shady is like Shakespeare’s Fool: the character who darts across the plot to tip the audience to truths unseen by the other characters. The Fool is sly, smarter than he lets on, and concealed by his comedy. He may annoy or illuminate, but he won’t be ignored. Like any mischief-makers worth their weight, be they political, like Abbie Hoffman, or mythological, like the Greek god Pan, Slim Shady is a savior in a nuisance suit—a needed, uninvited messenger. Slim Shady is also compulsive, neurotic, and in possession of both the knack for getting into trouble and the cunning to extricate himself from it.
The reeling rhyme animal in action at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, September 10, 1999.
“I’m bringing cutting edge humor to hip-hop.” Eminem said a few months before The Slim Shady LP debuted. “It’s been missing that for a while.” In 1999, mainstream hip-hop was serious and seriously materialistic, fuelled as much by industry standards as consumer taste: Jay-Z’s Volume 2—Hard Knock Life and Volume 3—The Life and Times of S. Carter, Puff Daddy’s Forever, Missy Elliot’s Da Real World, as well as the Notorious B.I.G.’s first and 2Pac’s third posthumous albums were the dominant barometers of the time. Humor, sarcasm, and the exploration of anything other than the spoils of the hip-hop life were in short supply. Volume 2—Hard Knock Life is one of Jay-Z’s most somber offerings, fueled by the single “Hard Knock Life,” which featured a sample from the Annie soundtrack. It was the most crossover-minded collection of his career. His follow-up, Volume 3—The Life and Times of S. Carter, was a favorite buoyed by the boasting single “Big Pimpin’.” Puff Daddy’s Forever depicted the high life as a full-time job, complete with Cristal memories and forty-karat dreams. Missy Elliot’s sober second album relied more heavily on hip-hop cliché than she had ever and would ever again. In 1999, Cash Money Records and Master P’s No Limit Records, two Southern labels whose image epitomized ghetto excess, made their mark. Both labels had been raking in tens of millions of dollars since 1995 with minimal mainstream exposure and no major-label distribution; but deals with Universal Records and Priority Records, respectively brought their sound to the masses. Rapper B.G. of the Cash Money family put a term to the material age with the anthem “Bling Bling,” from the 1999 album Chopper City in the Ghetto. The phrase was slang for all things shiny and pricey, from having enough ice (diamonds) to skate on, to Lorinser rims and Yokohama tires on every (note the “every”) ride in the garage, a combination that can average $2,000 per wheel. The bling-bling philosophy was really more eighties than nineties: it was conspicuous consumption, the belief that you were only living when you were blinging.
Flaunting possessions and referring to brand names in rap lyrics are as old as hip-hop itself, but in the late nineties the trend grew elitist. Where goods were once a piece of the picture, they took center stage and were upgraded exponentially, making hungry bystanders of much of the hip-hop nation. Where Run-D.M.C. once rapped about their Adidas, Puffy now rapped about Prada; where rap gear once meant a Troop tracksuit and boombox, it had become diamonds, designer clothes, and cars. Hip-hop’s material lust complemented the pseudo-Mafioso imagery that dominated the East