Whatever You Say I Am_ The Life and Times of Eminem - Anthony Bozza [75]
A white limousine slithers up the block. It waits across the street, in front of the door. Four young men stroll up and look in the window. When nothing happens, they lean on a nearby wall. The door opens ten minutes later and a large black man leads out a pack of white men. The men against the wall are perplexed.
“Who y’all with?” one asks. No one seems to have heard him.
“Yo, man, who y’all with?” he asks again, walking over.
“Eminem,” I tell him.
“Who?”
“Eminem. He’s signed to Dr. Dre’s label.”
“Oh yeah?” he says, skeptical, surveying the pack of whiteys. “He performing?”
“Yeah, three songs.”
“I’m gonna have to see that,” he says. “Hey, yo, can I come in wit you?”
Eminem, buried in an XXXL hooded sweatshirt, emerges from the car and we move to the door. We wait in a cluster, while the eyes on line scan us for a clue as to why we made it to the front so quickly. The answer hangs along the block, but no one shouts out. They look on, Manhattan unimpressed; but it could be disbelief. It is Friday, March 5, 1999, at a large, weekly hip-hop party. A pack of nonfamous white guys and their black security guard just cruised up in a king-size white stretch and entered the building.
Inside the entrance, three guards much bigger than Eminem’s guard pat people down and trace them with metal detectors. Pockets are emptied, arms are uplifted, and shoes are scrutinized. On a chair sits a few knives, a box cutter, and a pair of brass knuckles.
“You had any problems in here?” someone behind me asks a guard.
“Somebody was poppin’ shots outside a couple of weeks ago,” the guard says. “They was driving by and shootin’ in the air like cowboys. We knew who they was and we saw ’em, so we don’t let ’em in no more. They’re not too happy about that, but it’s all good.”
Downstairs is a lounge, hot and crowded. The patrons are drinking, jostling for room to stand or dance or smoke, to turn away or make headway with a member of the opposite sex. Some people are flossy, sporting jewels and new clothes; others are in sweatshirts and big jackets, holding Heinekens. It is a predominantly mainstream crowd, turned out at the week’s end to hear the hip-hop hits of the moment and the classics that never get old. The DJ and dance floor are upstairs; here, the bumping is muffled. A few underground MCs, record industry people, and journalists sip cocktails in the booths or stand shoulder to shoulder. We in Eminem’s entourage fill a small dressing room too easily, and the guard closes the door. As soon as he does, there’s a knock on it—a sound that won’t stop for the half hour we’re in here. Most will be turned away, but this knock is warranted: It’s Jonathan “Shecky Green” Schecter, cofounder of the The Source magazine and founder of Game Recordings, the hip-hop record label/softcore-porn video production house that celebrates, in image more than in music, the fruits of gangsta fantasy: money, rap, and curvaceous ethnic ladies. Earlier this year Game made themselves known with their second twelve-inch release: Bad Meets Evil/Nuttin’ to Do, by Royce Da 5′ 9″. Featuring Eminem, it was released just as Eminem’s buzz took off. Schecter is armed with the spoils of Game: champagne and a pair of video house talents—sexy, nearly naked black women in leather bikini tops. Crossing this full room is like playing a game of checkers; only diagonal moves to any open space are possible. Schecter and the Game girls map a path to Eminem, Royce passes out Heinekens, and someone fills the room with blunt smoke.
Eminem sits on the dressing-room counter, leaning against the mirror, a Game girl at each leg. The security guard plays bouncer, quizzing the crowd at the door. He turns away a group of girls who just want to say hello, then a pair of dudes who are not who they claim