Whatever You Say I Am_ The Life and Times of Eminem - Anthony Bozza [46]
Eminem’s brushes with the law in 2000 gave credence to his haters’ theory that bad words promote bad behavior, but it almost didn’t matter. The press was divided, among themselves and within themselves, over Eminem. He had created an “indefensible and critic-proof” (Entertainment Weekly) “call-your-local-congressperson offensive” (Time) album in The Marshall Mathers LP, “with all the production values and skill money can buy” (Billboard) that “isn’t just a twisted joke; the rapper’s sociopathic facade masks the lingering hurts of his Dickensian childhood” (Newsweek). It was the “first hip-hop album to assume universal attention” (www.salon.com) that “contains the most blatantly offensive, homophobic lyrics the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has seen in many years” (GLAAD alert). It was also “dangerously close to being a classic” (Vibe), a “gruelling assault course of lyrical genius” that “somehow feels completely conversational, the musical backdrop (calypso/Caribbean, Gothic etherea, jiggy disco evolving into P.M. Dawn) is frequently, of all things, beautiful” (Village Voice); it was a “car-crash record: loud, wild, dangerous, out of control, grotesque, unsettling” (Rolling Stone) and an album in which “nothing rises above the level of locker-room insults—nearly every song seems to feature Eminem giving someone the finger” (New York Magazine). It contained “some of the most explicit descriptions of violence ever to make their way into people’s homes” (National Organization for Women, public statement) but it was “funny how much controversy can spring up over an album that is, musically, not all that noteworthy … what could have been a brilliant statement instead elevates Eminem to the rarefied air of true platinum rappers, i.e., those that drop outstanding rhymes over frustratingly mediocre beats” (Spin), a condition that just “isn’t that much fun this time around, no matter how fresh Dre’s beats are” (L.A. Weekly). In the end, “there’s even less point moralizing about this one than there was the last” (Village Voice, Robert Christgau), and “Marshall Mathers is music about what one man doesn’t know, doesn’t even know if he wants to know, and on that road anything can happen” (Interview, Greil Marcus)
After The Marshall Mathers LP became the fastest-selling rap album of all time, racking up 1.3 million copies sold in one week, his dissenters, just like Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) in Jaws, were in need of a bigger boat.
“The controversy didn’t surprise me,” Eminem says. “I knew there was something coming. I didn’t know exactly what it was yet, but Dre told me I’d better get ready for some shit. He was like, ‘You’re gonna go through it. Believe me, I went through it with N.W.A.’ But I had no idea all of that was gonna happen. You know, selling all the records I sold off The Marshall Mathers LP out the gate was strange to me. Not that I feel undeserving or anything like that, but I was just like, ‘Holy fuck, this is me doin’ this.’ That’s the biggest weirdest thing to live with. I had no choice but to get used to it. But it’s still strange.”
By September 2000, the “Eminem question” reached the floor of the Senate, where the vice president’s wife spoke out against Eminem.
“So here’s a name,” said Lynne Cheney, former chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, “Marshall Mathers. It is truly astonishing to me that a man whose work is so filled with hate would be so honored by