... From Paul's Instagram
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| Em in Plaid |
A blog made by fans, for fans!
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
News
In an article published in The Detroit Free Press a few days ago, Mark Bass, a producer that formerly
worked with Eminem, claimed he is mixing new music by D12:
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| D12, photo taken by PR |
"Bass, who has started a label called Motunes Media, says he’s also been mixing new material by the mercurial funk-pop giant Sly Stone with members of the original Family Stone band, along with new D12 tracks, including three with Eminem."
We hope this is true and that we will get new music from D12 soon.
This is a great oppurtunity to reminisce about the Dirty Dozen and to read about The Bass Brothers' work with Eminem in the early days.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
ESPN Magazine 2013
According to : https://www.facebook.com/MojoInTheMorning
Detroit's very own Calvin Johnson and Eminem are featured on this month's ESPN Magazine Cover
* More to come *
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| Another photo... found on twitter |
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Rolling Stone 2002
The loose-lipped rapper isn't afraid of his demons. Should you be?
By Anthony Bozza
By Anthony Bozza
Check Out:
Rolling Stone 1999 Interview
Rolling Stone 2004 Interview
Rolling Stone 2010 Interview
Rolling Stone 2013 Interview
Rolling Stone 1999 Interview
Rolling Stone 2004 Interview
Rolling Stone 2010 Interview
Rolling Stone 2013 Interview
In a lounge chair in the presidential suite of a Detroit hotel, Eminem sits as he always does: leaning back in his chair, his legs wide apart, eyes straight ahead. He's dressed head to toe in Air Jordan. Sometimes, he suddenly leans forward to emphasize a point, tucking his hand under his chin or gesturing with a pointed finger, the way he does onstage. His eyes and skin are clear; he looks lean and in shape, and he has an odd, almost angelic glow to him, as if he's been wandering the desert with hip-hop monks. He's been keeping late hours, but it doesn't show, maybe due to better eats. ("Damn, they didn't get me fries with that," he says, eyeing a room-service tuna melt. "I'm off that no-carb diet.") He is relaxed, a king in his castle, ready to greet the world after a year of battle. Since the release of his second album, The Marshall Mathers LP, in May 2000, Eminem has seen his celebrity grow into a sun orbited by his own label (Shady Records), his partners in rhyme D12, a planet of fans, a nascent movie career (with the release of 8 Mile this fall) and an asteroid field of cops, lawyers and judges. In August 2000, he filed for divorce from his twisted muse and the love of his life, Kim, whom he had married only a year earlier. They shared eleven years and now share custody of their six-year-old daughter, Hailie Jade. In June 2000, while he and Kim were still married, Eminem witnessed her kissing another man outside a suburban Detroit bar. After a very short internal debate, Em pistol-whipped the guy and earned himself the first of two felony charges that year - the second came after an altercation involving the ersatz rap group the Insane Clown Posse. The two charges spelled possible jail time for twenty-eight-year-old Marshall Mathers, a gangsta reality he was scared as hell to add to his portfolio. To spice the stew further, Eminem's vitriolic rhymes made him the constant subject of protests by gay -- and women's-rights groups. The threat of prison and his current probation woke him up and grew him up right quick. He stopped drinking and downing purple pills and, as always, took his angst to the studio.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Rolling Stone 2004
THE SERIOUS SIDE OF EMINEM
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| Credit: Rollingstone |
Rolling Stone 1999 Interview
Rolling Stone 2002 Interview
Rolling Stone 2010 Interview
Rolling Stone 2013 Interview
Eminem has become a family man. during two long conversations over two days in Detroit in October, he constantly mentions the kids he's raising, as any proud father would: His daughter, Hailie Jade, will soon be nine, his niece Alaina is eight, and his half brother, Nate, is eighteen. In October, Marshall Mathers turned thirty-two. He grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, and Detroit without a father figure, but he has grown into a committed parent who goes to school plays and everything. He schedules most of his recording in Detroit and has put his movie career on hold so he can be home with the kids at night.
He has slowed down his drinking and his drug use since two 2000 gun charges that he feared would take him away from Hailie, but his ex, Kim Mathers, has slogged through her own legal morass. In June 2003 she was arrested for possession of cocaine, then failed to show up in court and for a short while hid from the police. Eminem says that explaining the situation to Hailie and Alaina "was one of the hardest things I ever had to go through." At the time of our first interview, Kim was in jail. At the time of our last interview, she had been released. "She's out right now," he said. "We're hoping that stays kosher."
Monday, January 6, 2014
Sunday, January 5, 2014
'The Way I Am' - Excerpts from book 2008
Link to buy the book:
There is also an option to "look inside" and read parts when you click on the cover.
Eminem's Memoir: Exclusive Excerpt from EW.com
In this first look at ''The Way I Am,'' the Grammy-winning rapper comes to terms with his anger issues, including his bout with Moby at the MTV Video Music Awards
I've always had issues with my temper.
I've always had issues with my temper.
When I look back at myself during those years when everything was blowing up, I think maybe at first I was a little, you know, too aggressive and loud. It was like I had this voice and I had to be heard. ''Don't f--- with me,'' to the point where people must have been wondering, Why is this dude so angry? Is he on crack? Is he on crystal meth? I go back and see old interviews and even now I wonder, Why was I so hyper?
I went through a phase back then when I was shooting pistols in the air behind the studio and, you know, pulling guns out, pointing a pistol in somebody's face, not even realizing that I could've gone to jail for that s---.
Back then I was living on a main road, Hayes Street, and random people used to come and knock on my door all the time. The first album had gone four times platinum. I finally had some money. I remember thinking, I have a house, I can park in back. It was the first time in my life I'd had a real home that I could call my own and nobody was going to be able to throw me out. Directly across the street there was a trailer park. Wouldn't you know it? Sometimes kids would sit and wait for me to come out.
Other times they didn't even bother to wait. They would just come and bang on the door. The doorbell kept ringing. I was starting to lose it. As soon as I would open the front door the camera flashes would go off. They'd start clapping. I was losing my mind. I got up in one kid's face with a pistol. Unloaded, but still. Was that the right thing to do?
Hell, no. But my temper was out of control. Thank God I was in enough control to not do something tragic. I had to move out of there before I wound up hurting somebody.
My mood can change quickly. It's always been that way. When I was drinking, I could be in a good mood — just loving everybody and feeling like everything was great — then somebody would say the wrong s--- to me, and before you knew it there was nothing my bodyguards could do to stop me from reacting and at least punching, spitting, or kicking a few times before they could get to me. It would be the simplest s--- that would set me off, like somebody looking at me hard. And I could not stop until I felt like I'd done something to make that person accountable, to make that person learn his lesson. Afterward, I would be full of apologies, just saying ''I'm sorry'' over and over. I'd feel like such an idiot for acting like that. Like, Why can't I control this?
You all saw the Triumph thing go down at the MTV Video Music Awards, right? That's a pretty perfect example. I mean, there I am, sitting in my seat, and they announce that I'm up for an award, presented by Christina Aguilera. I had said some things about her in the past, Moby had said some things about me, and I had said some things back about him. So I'm sitting there next to Proof, and they bring in Moby and sit him like two rows directly behind us. So now I'm like, Okay, what's going on? What are they trying to do? I've got Moby behind me, and Christina up onstage, and then this dog puppet gets up in my face. I'd been so busy touring and doing my own s--- that I hadn't had time to watch TV, so I had no idea what that dog was. All I saw was Moby and Christina and this dude who's sticking his hand in my face, trying to be funny. I didn't even see the puppet, you know? My natural reaction was, ''Get the f--- out of my face. Get your f---ing hand out of my face.'' And that's when I kind of lost it and a half. I should have kept my composure, but instead I stuck my fingers basically on Moby's nose. Right in his face, like, ''F--- you.''
When they told me I won the award, I went up there and gave Christina a hug, because there wasn't a real beef with her. I was just dissing her to separate myself 'cause I didn't want to be classified as a pop artist. When I hugged her, I thought I was being as mature as I could be. But when I got behind closed doors in the green room, I threw a fit. There was a cooler with drinks in it, and I asked if anybody wanted to grab a water or something. Nobody did. So I picked up the cooler and threw it against the wall and kind of f---ed up the whole room, basically.
Jeff Bass on Eminem (Grantland, 2013)
Q&A: Producer Jeff Bass on Discovering Young Eminem: 'He Was Sitting on the Toilet, and He Came Up With the Alter Ego'
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| Jeff Bass (Credit: 'Jeff Bass Music' facebook page) |
By Amos Barshad on November 6, 2013 4:18 PM ET
You may have never heard of the Bass Brothers. But you've heard the Bass Brothers. Before Jimmy Iovine, before Dr. Dre, it was Michigan's Jeff and Mark Bass who were flipping their shit over the sounds of a young kid from Detroit named Marshall Mathers. In the early days, the production duo's studio on 8 Mile Road was like a second home for Eminem. And it was there that they recorded The Slim Shady EP, which would eventually make its way to Dre and Iovine and land Eminem his record deal. They'd continue to work with Em for years, producing all but three tracks on The Slim Shady LP, some of the more twisted ends of The Marshall Mathers LP, and — drum roll, drum roll, drum roll — "Lose Yourself." With this week's release of The Marshall Mathers LP 2, we got Jeff Bass on the phone to talk about the good old days.
How'd you meet Eminem?
My brother was listening to the radio, what today is our 95.5. It was a DJ we knew named Lisa Lisa. He called and asked her who that was, freestyling. She said, that’s Marshall Mathers. He said, “Is there any way we can get in touch with him?” She gives him the number. My brother called. And at three o’clock in the morning [Eminem] came to the studio, with a bunch of little dudes who turned out to be D12. That’s how it began. We didn’t know him, and he didn’t know us. He took a leap of faith at three in the morning.
Was he in school then?
He was working. He was flipping hamburgers at a little diner. Kind of a Coney Island. And every chance he got, he was in the studio. After work, before work. Studio.
What'd you make of him at first?
I was always kind of a hip-hop head, because of the R&B roots behind it. But when Marshall came into the picture, I wasn't quite sure about his ability — because I couldn't understand what he was saying! He was triple-timing, spitting rhymes: I was just trying to comprehend him. Then I started writing tracks for him. And it became apparent that he was amazing.
In between Infinite [Eminem's official, independently released first album] and The Slim Shady EP, we figured out how to communicate with him. Because he doesn’t come from a musical background. We had to figure out a way emotionally to get through to him. So how I approached it is, any song that had a happy feel we’d call a happy tune. Angry, sad, violent — we’d use adjectives to get through to him. So that he could write the type of lyrics that’d go with the track.
Most people know Kim as a character. You have a different perspective.
He’s been with me since ‘95, when he was a young buck. I was with him when Hailie was just born. I knew Kim. She used to come into the studio with us all the time. We used to take Marshall out to the different clubs in Detroit. She would come with us, be her crazy self.
Friday, January 3, 2014
Launch 2004
FEATURE - The Dirty Dozen Dish The Dirt
By Billy Johnson Jr
Is there any truth to D12's song "My Band?" Is Eminem really the obnoxious lead singer depicted in the song? Does he really insist on preferential treatment and steal the limelight from his group members? In this exclusive interview, the Detroit Dozen's Eminem and Proof respond to all of our questions regarding the matter. But if you've chalked D12 up as a novelty band only good for comedic efforts, think again. Em and Proof explain how their latest album, D12 World, gives them an opportunity to prove their other lyrical talents.
LAUNCH editor Billy Johnson Jr. traveled to the group's hometown for this interview, in which they revealed details about internal feuding, the death of D12's seventh member, and the solo album plans for the rest of the guys. Read on.
LAUNCH: Your first single, "My Band," is hilarious. You've chosen to parody yourselves this time. Who came up with that idea?
EMINEM: I don't know. We were just talking one day...I was walking around the studio, just in "dude" mode. And it just came about. I went in and laid a hook, like I was doing a beat, and then they came in and listened to it. They liked the beat, so I put a hook to it.
PROOF: And here we are!
EMINEM: I laid my magnificent vocals down, had everyone come check it out. Like, "This is the issue we should address."
LAUNCH: What that the purpose of that single?
EMINEM: We wanted to address it, but hadn't come about with the proper way to do it yet, and that was just, like, a last-minute thing. I think it was one of the last songs on the album.
LAUNCH: How do you view this song? Is it comedy for you?
PROOF: Not really. It was a perspective that a lot of people see us as, 'cause of the situation that we're in.
LAUNCH: Do you think the song helps the situation or make it worse?
PROOF: I think it helps.
EMINEM: It's reverse psychology.
PROOF: It's reverse psychology, exactly.
LAUNCH: What reaction are you guys getting on the street?
PROOF: Oh, they be like, "You crazy. Silly as f--k!"
LAUNCH: Was it fun to look at your own situation and deal with it this way?
EMINEM: Yeah. I mean, the whole concept of the song is just like I'm a dick. Like, let me just be an a--hole, which is how the media perceives me: "Look, I don't care about these guys; we hate each other. We're fighting on the road all the time." It's the overall picture of how people can see us, and we think it's funny.
PROOF: Like, in your face!
EMINEM: Right back at you.
LAUNCH: Eminem , are you the sort of guy that's "always right"?
EMINEM: [sarcastically] Yeah, what I say goes. And that's it. And they all know that it's one way or it's out the door.
PROOF: Enough of that guy! We whoop his ass when the cameras is off. That's what happens.
EMINEM: Right. That's what I was getting to. OK?
LAUNCH: One difference I hear on this album is there's not so much of the shock-value stuff on the songs. Do you agree with that?
PROOF: I think that it's us growing up a little bit, getting a little mature.
LAUNCH: Did you want people to realize that there was more to you than "Purple Pills"? "
PROOF: Exactly.
EMINEM: Yeah, more substance. We need to make sure of that, you know. The shock value of it all of that spawned from Detroit. Like this whole Slim Shady era in everything that I did from that album. The Marshall Mathers LP had a lot of shock value to it, too. So I mean, this was my group, but the world wasn't in tune with it yet. I came out first, and no one had ever heard me do it. So then group came out, and it was funny at first, but we felt like we needed to step the game up a notch, as far as putting emotion into it. Show them a little skill, just taking it to the next level. We had to do something different.
MTV 1999
Eminem: Slim Shady Goes Home
While much has been made of the controversy and commercial success of Eminem and his new album, "Slim Shady," little attention has been paid to the complex character behind the Detroit rapper.
Splitting his childhood between the streets of Kansas City and the Motor City, Eminem, a.k.a. Marshall Mathers, was raised by his single mother and never really knew his father. After his family eventually settled down in Detroit when he was 12, Eminem entered an admittedly tumultuous time in his life, and his passion for rap and freestyle soon became the dominant force of his formative years.
The lofty goal of securing renown and respect in rap circles seemed like all but a dream when Eminem released his mundane debut, "Infinite," back in 1996. But the disappointment caused Mathers to tweak his style into the highly animated, sharp-witted flow featured on "Slim Shady."
The young father also focused on winning over the underground hip-hop scene, a move that eventually earned him a spot on the first Lyricist Lounge tour and a friend and mentor in Dr. Dre., who produced several "Shady" tracks.
During a visit to Detroit, MTV News' Kurt Loder joined Eminem for a journey through the rapper's past, and the two discussed Mathers' hard knock life, his 3-year-old daughter, plans for Eminem's upcoming tour and his reaction to the critical outrage sparked by some of his over-the-top lyrics.
Our interview catches up with Eminem as the rapper returns to the house he grew up in, and attempts to persuade its current occupants to let him and Loder come inside for a little tour...
Eminem: This is the house. See back there? There used to be a garage there, but it burnt down. Looks like they've put a new front door on. Actually, it doesn't look that bad. Let's see if anybody's here...
(to person inside house) Hello? Yo, excuse me. Can we talk to you -- not through the door?
Voice: About what?
Eminem: My name is Slim Shady. I used to live in this house. I'm here with MTV right now.
Kurt: That always works for me when I want to break in someplace.
Eminem (to person inside): I used to live in this house six years ago, and I grew up here. What if we take a look in the back yard? Can we do that?
Voice: Yeah, go ahead.
NYtimes 2010
QUESTIONS FOR EMINEM
The Real Marshall Mathers
Interview By DEBORAH SOLOMON
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| Credit: Nigel Parry for The New York Times |
On your new album, “Recovery,” which comes out on Monday, you assume a confessional tone and back off from the misogyny and demented violence you pushed in your earlier work. Would you agree?
I think I’d have to go back and listen to it. Did I?
Does Slim Shady, your raping and killing alter ego, still exist? Or have you split with him?
Shady still exists. But I don’t think the subjects on this record call for, you know, bring the chainsaws and axes out and murder everyone on this record. There was so much stuff like that off the last record that I felt like I was starting to run it into the ground. I think consciously I went in a different direction with this record.
Do you regret having written so many songs that refer to women as “bitches” and “hos” who exist solely for your pleasure?
Anything I’ve ever said, I certainly was feeling at the time. But I think I’ve calmed down a bit. My overall look on things is a lot more mature than it used to be.
Even your mother sued you for defamation. Is she still in Detroit, where she raised you as a single mom?
I’m not sure, to be honest. It’d be very hard to repair that relationship.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Esquire 2008
Eminem: What I've Learned
After a long hiatus, the rapper talks about coming to terms with anger, fatherhood, being single, being white...and his pink boxers.
BY BRIAN MOCKENHAUPT
Eminem still lives and records in Detroit, Michigan. The title of his movie 8 Milerefers to the road that divides the city's poor and rich neighborhoods. He recently published an autobiographical book, The Way I Am.
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| Eminem Esquire |
Don't call it a comeback.
People can try to reinvent themselves. I don't think you can really change who you are, though, because who you are is pretty much where you came from and what you've done up to now. You can change your image and all that -- you can change your fucking clothes, your underwear, your hair color, all that shit -- but it's not going to mean you're a brand-new person.
You want to say, "I don't give a fuck what anybody says." Yeah, you do.
I'm sure people think I've vanished off the face of the earth.
I went for nine, ten years straight, without taking a break at all. I needed to rejuvenate.
Complex 2009
Eminem: The Day After (2009 Cover Story)
BY NOAH CALLAHAN-BEVER | DEC 1, 2009
Story by Noah Callahan-Bever; Photography by Matt Doyle; Styling by Anoma Ya Whittaker; Computer-Generated Imagery by Digital Fusion CGI
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| Eminem Complex cover 2009 |
Much was made earlier this year of Eminem's comeback album, Relapse. But the real story is how he's put together the best sequel since The Dark Knight.
I just met Eminem again, for the first time in 10 years. Don't get me wrong, we've spoken at least a half-dozen times since our initial introduction back in May of '98, when I interviewed him for BLAZE Magazine. But the guy I dealt with in those intervening years? Well, he was a different person. The dude I met in that strip mall parking lot more than a decade ago, listening to mixes on the stock system of his Buick rental, was outgoing, hilarious, genuine, razor-sharp, and endlessly talented. He was a walking adventure and an inspiration. But, with him being overwhelmed by the fame—and then the work, and then the drugs—every encounter we shared after the release of The Slim Shady LP got incrementally more awkward, involved less eye contact, and left me feeling more concerned about the collateral damage of his unmitigated success.
For the first few years this change was to be expected, as his ubiquitous celebrity necessitated isolation, and his grueling schedule of albums, tours, and movies would be enough to wear down even the most rugged. But the relationship hit its nadir, for me, with an interview in February of 2006—weeks before the murder of his best friend, Proof. I had no idea the depth of his troubles, but detached, glassy-eyed, and at least 30 pounds heavier than just six months prior, Eminem seemed to be plunging off the deep end. I don't know Em well enough to call him Marshall, but I do know enough to say with certainty that the bloated space cadet at that shoot was not the guy I'd met wearing that same damn Nike hat. And as the aforementioned personal tragedy unfolded, and the public became more aware of his deteriorating condition, from a distance it really felt like Em might be living out the frequent and unwelcome comparisons to Elvis— specifically, an untimely, pill-addled end.
XXL 2006 , on Proof & Em
Proof
Stay Tru
By XXL Staff
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| R.I.P MC Proof. Photo credit: XXL website |
For more than a decade, up until his shooting death on April 11, Deshaun Dupree “Proof” Holton was a leading figure on the Detroit rap scene. In the mid-’90s, as host and frequent participant at the famed open-mic night at Maurice Malone’s Hip-Hop Shop, Proof carved out a legacy as an unparalleled battle MC, and—as depicted by Mekhi Phifer in the 2002 movie 8 Mile—played an instrumental role in pushing his friend and rhyme partner Eminem to worldwide superstardom.
Proof was born in Detroit on Oct. 2, 1973, the son of record producer McKinley Jackson. He attended various Catholic schools as a child, and went on to Osborn High in his teens, but dropped out to pursue a career in rap before graduating. He formed a duo, Funky Cowboy, in 1996 with producer J Dilla—who also died earlier this year—and later, the multiplatinum sextet D12. While Phifer’s 8 Mile character, Future, was based on Proof’s real-life persona, Proof himself appeared in the movie as Lil’ Tic—the MC who intimidates Eminem’s B-Rabbit into choking in the opening battle scene.
Always one of Motor City’s most approachable stars, Proof could regularly be found at clubs, restaurants, concerts and bowling alleys, and he continued in his support of local hip-hop. Last summer, he launched his own label, Iron Fist Records, with his solo debut, Searching for Jerry Garcia, and planned on releasing the work of his artists Purple Gang, Woof Pak and Supa MC.
A few weeks before his death, Proof sat at the Iron Fist offices in the Michigan Building, about two blocks from the Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit. He was in a good mood, happy with the 50,000 copies Searching for Jerry Garcia had sold, planning an overseas tour with Kid Rock’s DJ, Paradime, and looking forward to starting work on the next D12 album. Shrugging off recent talk of problems within the group, he was quick to defend Eminem against attack, and recounted a recent run-in with one of his camp’s biggest detractors. He also touched on the strange highway shooting of his label mate Obie Trice, his new album, his position in the Motown hip-hop scene and a life that seemed nowhere near finished.
You’ve always stood by your friendship with Eminem. Over the last couple years, he’s taken a lot of heat from certain figures in the industry. In an interview with XXL, Suge Knight tore into him with some pretty venomous statements. He called Em a “racist,” and basically compared him to a slave master.
Well, I had the privilege of meeting Suge Knight. I’m from Detroit, and I guess I don’t understand the fear that some people strike in others. I mean, Suge is doing bad, everybody knows it. The industry banned him. I personally think he shot himself. That’s just me. I mean, what he says don’t even count. When he’s running the record label as a Black man and somebody’s White running a record label, and it’s all the same shit across the board, where’s the slave-master mentality? That makes Suge a slave master if that’s the case. He has a platform to speak from, but most of the things he be saying is bullshit.
Why do you think it’s so popular to rip Em?
High profile! Like I had told Em one time about Suge, if you shut up saying stuff about him, that makes him stronger. If you attack him, you take away the only credibility that he’s got. And that is, the streets believe he’s just some hard-assed muthafucka. But if you approach it like, Yo, he’s not! Like Snoop did on that song “Pimp’d Slapp’d 2 (Fuck Suge Knight),” that shit is hard. ’Cause they’re ain’t nobody saying nothing to Suge. Em had a couple of things they wouldn’t let him say. You know, the labels and shit. If Suge really looks at himself, he destroyed himself. I mean, you had Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Tupac. You got all these big artists, and you’re going to let the streets dictate how to run a record label? It’s like, Okay…
I’ve always been in the hood. But just ’cause I got love for rapping and people in general, I don’t give a fuck what color nobody is. A person’s a person. That’s just the way I operate. I’ll get the “Uncle Toms” and all this kind of shit… But me and Em will be dawgs forever. There’s no doubt. There’s nothing that anyone can say to me about Eminem at all. It’s like, just stop it, okay?
You said you met Suge. This was last year, right? You were in Vegas with Trick Trick? What went down that day?
Well, I was upstairs, and they said that Suge was downstairs. So I was like, I’m going downstairs! He’s with like two or three big dudes. When I came down there, Trick was already there, and he said he told Suge he’s gonna have to see me or something to that effect. I’m like, I don’t want to talk to that nigga. Then I was just chillin’ with some friends, and one of the dudes that was with Suge said something to me. I was like, I ain’t messing with that shit. It wasn’t nothing. So then Kid Rock was downstairs. I love Kid Rock to death. Me and Bob go way back, and this night he decides to be the peacemaker. So when I see Suge next to Kid Rock, I wanted to post up just to make sure that Suge wasn’t trying no crazy shit, you know. But he wasn’t. I guess they knew each other. Then Kid Rock says to Suge, “Hey, that’s my childhood friend. Proof! Come here! Come here!” I’m like, man, that’s fuckin’ Suge Knight. I’m not about to come talk to him. But I walk over there, and Suge sticks out his hand. And I’m like, “I ain’t shakin’ your muthafuckin’ hand. Get out of my face with that shit.” He pointed like, “You, you, and you come outside.” I said, “Man, that’s the last thing you told Tupac, and we ain’t seen him since.” Once I did that, the way his face looked was priceless. I don’t try to tell that story too much, ’cause I’m not trying to be that kind of person. But I know the kind of people I’ve been around all my life. Most of the certain ones, I can put them in the same category, ’cause of this look that they’ve got. When I looked at Suge and that shit wasn’t nowhere there, I was like, I can’t believe it. It was almost like a letdown. It was like, This ain’t the guy. This guy can’t be one of them guys. I’m not even one of those guys, but I know them guys, and he’s not one of them dudes.
When you’re in other cities, do you feel like you have to represent Detroit in a certain way—let others know that you don’t take any shit?
If you can survive in Detroit, I’ll be damned if I’ll go anywhere and be hoed out. ’Cause this place is a muthafucka. They say there’s like two or three murders a day in Detroit. They don’t even make the news, that’s how much murder happens here.
Just like all that beefin’ with Suge, I ran into Chris Gotti the other day at the Compuware thing. Kind of the same thing Suge tried to do to me. I know the owner of the Compuware building and his wife, so I wasn’t about to tear up no shit. You know they tried to rush me down in Miami. Which they didn’t do anything. I’m like 165 pounds and five or six of y’all can’t get me. They was all just DJs and kittens. [Laughs.] I walked out with scratches.
Obie Trice was shot this past New Year’s Eve while driving down the freeway. Do you think there was any connection to rap, or was it just an unlucky, wrong-place, wrong-time kind of thing?
I think it’s a Detroit thing, honestly. I was at a show in Toledo when that happened. I drove all the way back thinking the worst shit ever. But it was a good thing the bullet didn’t really penetrate. I’m glad he’s hardheaded. People don’t know that Obie is actually my cousin. But we didn’t find that out ’til later, after being label mates. That’s some wild shit!
You’re known for being out on the scene here in Detroit, and for being approachable, down-to-earth. Has that become more difficult lately?
A lot of times when I’m out and about, I get to hear a lot more shit. When it comes to preserving hip-hop, like there was about to be a big rumble at Northern Lights on Tuesday. I took it upon myself to personally get on the phone and call both sides of the party like, “You’re not going to Northern Lights to fight. This is like the only hip-hop shit we got going in Detroit that’s real, and you guys are not going to fuck it up.” And they didn’t. So with the bad, there’s some good from me being on the scene and knowing a lot of rappers and stuff, so we can still preserve the scene. ’Cause I am the “Mayor of Hip-Hop.”
In that regard, you chose an interesting title for your album, Searching for Jerry Garcia. The Grateful Dead guitarist is not a name that carries a lot of currency in the hip-hop community.
You know what? It’s like a catchphrase when you say it to a Black person. They say, Who? It goes to show how closed minded people can be. Me, I’m open-minded, ’cause my father was a musician. He produced Tower of Power, Jones Girls, Marvin Gaye. Going to Catholic schools made me accepting of people of different cultures. I came across Jerry Garcia on a documentary on a whim. [My friend Mark and] I had just watched Searching for Bobby Fischer, and we’re watching this documentary come on. It says that Jerry Garcia’s demise came from stress, drugs and poor diet. Mark was like, “Fuck Bobby Fischer, that’s who they should be looking for.” And I was like, “Riiight!” He was the epitome of what an artist is. He did jazz, rock, whatever!
You had a lot of high-powered guests on the album. 50 Cent, Nate Dogg, Method Man and B-Real…
Method Man and B-Real! When people say Proof is down-to-earth, it’s because of those two people. I met Method Man in like ’94, when he first came out. He shot me his phone number, and we used to kick it on the phone, talkin’ ’bout doing a song together. We did the song, and it just showed me that once you did get on, you didn’t have to act a certain way. A lot of people tend to take that shit to their head. The things the fans say to you let you know how everybody else acts. When they say, What are you doing here? I live in Detroit for one, and I can come and see titties when I want to see titties! But that just shows you how distant others can be. [Laughs.] I think some people just let it go to their heads. I know that people let it go to their head, ’cause I catch myself in certain situations doing some wild shit. I’m like, That’s really not cool. I can be on the phone and just hang up. I’m like, [to myself], You couldn’t even say bye or anything? Like, where am I going? Maybe I’m distracted? Whatever it is, I know that that wasn’t right. Like, wow—what did I just do?!
I’m sure you don’t mind some of the public attention. But how do you deal with the overzealous fan who approaches you at an inopportune time? Like when you’re eating with your kids or taking a piss in the men’s room or something?
This is one thing I figured out about fans, it’s why I try to be gracious to them: The people at home don’t see the work when they’re at home watching TV. You don’t understand the work behind it. You just share the moment. Say Marilyn Manson’s my man. Say I’m watching Marilyn Manson on TV. I’m just a fan, right? When I see Marilyn Manson, he doesn’t know about my house, but I know my house and where I found my moment with Marilyn Manson at. So I gotta say something to you right? Now, I might say the dumbest shit in the world because I don’t know what to say. I feel like I know you. I don’t know you, but we had this moment at my home. At that moment that I’m talking to Marilyn Manson, he can’t feel what I’m feeling. They don’t share getting the beat, writing the rhyme, going in the studio, shooting the video. When the video’s shot, then we share just this one moment. But you can’t explain that to nobody that’s drunk at the bar.
Back before you were famous, back when Em was crashing at your house way back when. Did you ever imagine how big it would eventually get?
Let me tell you the illest story about what I say when people ask why I didn’t finish high school. I used to wake up, walk over to Em’s house to go to school at lunch. I had this little scam on lunch cards. I stole a bunch of lunch cards and gave them to people, then I would collect money from them at the end of the week. I’d go up there at lunch and stay for about three hours in a row. I’d never go to class! Em said to me one day, “Man, why are you going to high school? We’re gonna be rappers.” I was like, “Okay.” I go and talk to my mother. Say, “Mom, I want to drop out of high school and be a rapper.” She said, “Okay, you just got to get a job.” So I called Em, and I said, “Em, I can’t drop out of high school unless I got a job.” He said, “Okay, I’ll call you back.” He called back like three minutes later and had gotten me a job at Little Caesars. [Laughs.] Just imagine if he had been wrong.
XXL 2009
Eminem, “Hard To Kill”
It’s felt sort of empty without him, hasn’t it? One of the biggest superstars on the planet, Eminem has been on a three-year hiatus, dealing with some awfully heavy personal issues. He’s back now, though. And up to his old tricks. Sick. But healthier than ever.
Interview By Datwon Thomas
Photography By Perou
Tucked away in the VIP room of Morton’s steak house in downtown Cleveland, Eminem sits at the head of a long, 12-seat dinner table, looking more like a high school baseball shortstop than a multimillionaire don of the hip-hop world. He’s rocking a white Jordan fitted cap to the back, with a platinum cross dangling atop a wrinkled white T-shirt, black sweats, and Nike Air Max on the feet. Along with his longtime manager and partner, Paul Rosenberg, D12 producer Denaun Porter, and an eight-member team of label support, assistants and security, the 36-year-old rap star is watching Michigan State handle Connecticut in an NCAA Final Four game, which is playing on a huge flat-screen hanging on the mahogany walls. Repping Detroit harder (and more successfully) than General Motors, the crew oohs and aahs and screams at every basket, urging the Spartans to victory. Em cracks jokes about his publicist peeing on people in a riot back in the days. (Never happened.) But just as everything seems dorm-roomish and festive, word comes down. “Let’s roll. Em has to be there now.”
That’s a sentiment no doubt shared by millions of fans worldwide. One of hip-hop’s biggest-selling artists ever (his 34 million total domestic album sales ranks second only to Tupac), Eminem has been mostly MIA for the past three years. After an aborted European tour in summer 2005, the troubled icon ducked out of the spotlight to deal with a growing drug problem—one exacerbated, the next year, by the failure of his second marriage to Kimberly Scott, and even more by the loss of his best friend and rap partner, Proof, who died in a tragic, and still somewhat hazy, shooting incident in a bar on the very 8 Mile Road that Em has made so famous.
But he’s back. This spring marks the release of his sixth solo album, Relapse, the first of two on tap for the year. Judging from a quick listen to the setup singles “Crack a Bottle” (with fellow Interscope Records pillars Dr. Dre and 50 Cent) and “We Made You,” and a few select unreleased tracks, it’s pretty clear that rap’s nimble-tongued clown prince wants to reclaim his throne. With an emphasis on the cartoony, TV-steeped ultraviolence that rocketed him to fame 10 years ago, Em’s rapping in his Slim Shady guise, with a nod to his favorite Marvel comic-book hero, the trigger-happy vigilante Frank Castle a.k.a. The Punisher. “The Punisher just seemed appropriate for my return to the scene,” he says. “Shady with a vengeance!” Everyone feels the wrath—from horror-flick serial killers, like Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger, to train-wreck starlets, like Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, to failed vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. In the video for the first single, “We Made You,” Kim Kardashian gets the wood-chipper treatment.
But tonight there’s more serious business to attend to. It’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 24th annual induction ceremony, and the blue-eyed, formerly golden-haired god of hip-hop’s modern era will be introducing the greatest group from hip-hop’s early years, Run-DMC, before they take the stage and receive their prestigious due. Fresh from Morton’s, backstage at the museum’s performance hall, crumpled-up, handwritten speech tight in his fist, Em paces the small dressing room right next to the one occupied by Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry. “I’m about to rock this shit!” he says, goofing on his own nervous energy, as a black leather coat arrives for him to wear. “I don’t know what I’m about to rock, but I’m about to do it! I’ma, ummm, rock this speech!”
He hops up, dons the coat and a matching Run-DMC–style fedora, takes the walkway to the stage and busts a b-boy stance at the podium. The audience leaps to its feet. The place goes crazy. Somebody screams “It’s Eminem! He’s back!”
Where have you been? It seems like a whole generation of hip-hop has gone in the time that you’ve been away.
Yeah, well, there were a few things that played into that factor. First of all, I went for seven years straight and never took a break. It got to the point where I felt like I needed to pull back. After the last tour, the Anger Management 3, as everybody knows, I went into rehab for a drug problem that, honestly, didn’t get better when I went into rehab. I wasn’t ready to go into rehab. I felt that, at the time, everyone else was ready for me to go. And I wasn’t ready.
You weren’t ready mentally?
I wasn’t ready mentally. I wasn’t ready to give up the drugs. I didn’t really think I had a problem. Basically, I went in, and I came out. I relapsed, and I spent the next three years struggling with it. Also, at that time, I felt like I wanted to pull back, because my drug problem had got so bad. I felt like, Maybe if I take a break, maybe this will help.
I started to get into the producer role more… I can still be out there with my music, like with the Re-Up album, but I don’t have to be in the spotlight the whole time.
What types of drugs were you were taking?
Ever since the beginning of my career I dabbled in Vicodin, Valium, Ambien. It was kind of like a recreational thing that, for some reason, when it first started out, like ecstasy and shit like that, I was able to do it and step away from it. Drinking, I was able to do it and step away from it. But slowly it started progressing. For a while, there were, like, four to six months where I struggled with ecstasy. I had found myself taking it before every show.
So you would go out, rock these shows…
Yeah, like, on the Warped Tour, me and Proof would split a hit, like half a hit or whatever, and on top of it, I was drinking or whatever. Then I would come home and be like, Aight, I’m not gonna do it around the kids. So those would be the times I’d clean myself out. I’d be home for a week, two weeks or whatever and be like, I’m done with this. Then I’d get back out on the road and then… It started becoming that I’d be doing it all the time if people had it. I wouldn’t carry the shit on me. I wouldn’t have it myself. If we were around that kind of party atmosphere and somebody had it, which my music at that time always attracted that crowd, like the raver kids and shit like that, we’d end up hanging out with some kids somehow, and people would be around us and be like, “Hey, I got some mushrooms, I got this, I got that.” Slowly, after a period of time, it became where we were buying it on the road. So we would kinda say, “Who’s got the E?” It became where I wasn’t doing it anymore because people had it, I was doing it and actually purchasing the shit, just because. Then it got to a point where I felt like I needed it to be onstage.
My biggest thing was sleeping. I would take NyQuil and shit like that. I’d be like, Okay, well, this worked last night. But I got to take extra tonight, ’cause it ain’t gonna work. Now I got to get a prescription for something. I got to see my doctor.
Because you couldn’t sleep?
It’s between the schedule and all the shit when it starts to get crazy. When you’re in album cycle and touring and shit like that, the schedule… You got to be somewhere at certain times. You only got this little window to sleep. And if you don’t sleep, you are kind of fucked for the next day. So it was all the mental things that I went through. I struggled with ecstasy, kinda struggled with drinking. But I was able to cut it off, which is what I never understood about pills. But that’s obviously what you learn in rehab. It’s what becomes your drug of choice. Certain addicts may not struggle with… I may not have a problem with liquor. But if I drink liquor and I get to where I get a hangover the next day, I’m screaming for a Vicodin. “Oh, I wish I had a Vicodin!” So, basically, I struggled off and on with prescription pills, like, the next three years. Then, everybody knows, I went through a divorce. I was trying to put my family back together. That ended up not working out. Then losing my best friend. It was kinda like going through those struggles. None of that shit was easy. My addiction got worse and worse and worse. I had to come to the realization, I mean, I’ve been clean for a year now, but I had to come to the realization that I want to do this. This ain’t something that anybody can just tell me, know what I mean? This isn’t something that everyone can want for me.
When did you know that it was time for you to go to rehab?
There were a bunch of moments where I felt like, I want to do it, I want to do it. Ah, maybe now is not the time. Maybe I’ll just do this for a little longer. I started realizing, like,
I took a break from the spotlight, and I felt like I wanted to be with my family and spend more time with my kids and stuff like that. But the whole time, I’m walking around the house high most of the time. So I’m missing out on the best parts of their lives. There were several moments. And it got to the point where the guilt that I started feeling inside for doing the shit… I wasn’t fooling anybody but myself. I had to come to that realization. At the time, I’m 35 years old, how long am I going to keep doing this? I felt like I needed to grow up, and if I didn’t grow up, it was like, now or never.
Without Proof here, is there someone else that can help you with the emotional weight you’ve been dealing with?
I’ve always had a real tight circle. All the guys from D12, everybody in the circle, management and other members of our crew, have just always been there from day one. Everyone felt his loss, from his kids, to his wife, to everyone. But, for some reason, in hindsight, the way I felt was almost like it happened to just me… Maybe at that time I was a little bit selfish with it. I think it kind of hit me so hard. It just blindsided me. I just went into such a dark place that, with everything, the drugs, my thoughts, everything. And the more drugs I consumed, and it was all depressants I was taking, the more depressed I became, the more self-loathing I became… By the way, I’m just now at the point where I’m better talking about it. It took me so long to get out of that place where I couldn’t even speak about it without crying or wanting to cry… Proof was the anchor. He was everything to D12. And not just the group—for me, personally, he was everything.
When I say I went into a dark place, it feels like I literally crawled into a hole. There were days I’d just sit around all day and take pills and try to numb myself. It was almost an excuse for me to take more pills, like, I just lost Proof, so it’s okay for me to take a couple of pills.
I started spiraling out of control with my thoughts, with the drugs, with everything. When I would go to the studio, I kept trying to write songs about him. I think I might have wrote and recorded at least five or six songs about him. None of them came out the way I wanted them to, and all of them made me depressed. All of them made me go deeper into that hole… Nothing I wrote was good enough for him. Everything was, like, self-loathing.
Did you ever take any personal responsibility for what happened to him?
Yeah, I went through that kind of thing as well. I felt like, Well, maybe if I would have been with him at the club that night… He knows I was trying to get him to chill out and stop going to the club so much.
How did you react to all the conflicting information that came out immediately following the incident?
I got a bunch of conflicting stories, a bunch of conflicting things, and none of them ever made sense to me. There were things that I’d heard that they were saying, that Proof shot the dude first. It’s so not in his character to do that. There were other stories that matched what I knew Proof would have did. I had to go through the process in my head of, like, regardless of what happened, it happened. It’s not gonna bring him back. I don’t know if I’ve accepted it is the right word, but I’m dealing with it. Life for me will never be the same.
In what way did Proof’s death affect your work?There was, like, a two-year period where I couldn’t write shit. With what was going on and shit, I just couldn’t. I was so cluttered in my mind that everything I was writing wasn’t worth recording. I’d record it, and I’d get through half a song and be like, I don’t like this. I’d get through a song, and the next day I’d be like, Nah, that don’t sound like me. And then I started going in the studio and trying to freestyle. Like, I’d do a line at a time and be like, “Stop the tape,” and be like, “Okay, I got a line here.” You know, kinda like how Jay-Z would do it. Obie did a lot of that, too.
You know, so it was almost like, I don’t know if I was challenging myself to see if I could actually do it or if I was just being lazy with writing because I wasn’t feeling what I was actually writing… So it was like, going through them time periods, I could spend more time and feel good about recording music just making beats. But then when I came out of my writer’s block, I went into the studio with Dre… My first trip was in Orlando. We had planned the trip for, like, two weeks, and I called him on the phone, and I told him, “I don’t know, man, I might be coming out of this writer’s block.” And he was like, “Uh oh! That’s what I want to hear!” I went to Orlando, and I think I wrote, like, 11 songs in the couple weeks that we were out there. Dre kinda caught fire right around the same time that I was comin’ out of my thing… Once we started getting that chemistry back, it just went so crazy that I did two albums in, like, six or seven months. I was literally writing songs faster than I could record them. I’ll take a day out to do vocals, and then my voice will be gone for, like, the next two days. So I’ll have to rest my voice. So, in between, those two days that I’m resting my voice, I’m writing two or three more songs. Before I knew it, we had two albums’ worth of material.
Your new single, “We Made You,” heavily references Amy Winehouse’s sound. How did you keep up with new music during your time off? Were you on the Internet a lot?Nah, I wasn’t. Either I go buy CDs or I have Paul or somebody sending me something if I hadn’t heard it yet.I stayed up on the music, and obviously I watch TV and saw what was going on. And without naming any names, it just felt like hip-hop was going downhill. And it seemed like kinda fast. You know, in them three years, it was like everybody just cares about the hook and the beat; nobody really cares about substance. But with this new T.I. album, with this new Lil Wayne album of recent, it seems like things are looking a lot better now. You can appreciate Lil Wayne using different words to rhyme and actually rhyming words that you know. Or T.I., where you hear shit and you’re like, Whoa, ah, I wish I would have thought of that! You know what I mean? Or you hear all the compound-syllable rhyming and all that. It just seems like now the craft is getting cared about more.
XXL featured a new generation of MCs on the cover recently: Charles Hamilton, Wale, B.o.B, Asher Roth. Have you heard their music?Yeah. Well, B.o.B we actually have a publishing deal with. So I’ve been up on him for a while. But he’s insane. Like, talentwise. He’s, like, 20 years old, and the dude, like, fuckin’ plays guitar, he plays keyboard, he writes raps. He’s not only good at writing songs in the sense of just raps, but hooks. He’s fuckin’ insane. He can sing… I just worked with him a few weeks ago in the studio, and I’m like, “Do you fuckin’ dance, too? Jesus Christ!”
Charles Hamilton I’ve worked with a couple of years ago, toward the end of 2007. I just made the beat to a song, but, you know, I think Charles Hamilton is dope. Asher Roth, I haven’t had a chance to, like, really get into everything, like, really get into what he’s about, because I’ve only heard a couple of songs. There was talk about people saying he sounded like me, and he was doing this and that and, you know, trying to take what I do and do it. You know, shit like that. I’ve heard things. But the stuff that I’ve heard from him—honestly, which certainly isn’t enough for me to make my own opinion and say, “Yeah, he does sound like me” or “No, he doesn’t.” But the couple of songs I’ve heard, I don’t really think he does. You know what I mean? He’s doing his own thing. I can respect it, too, because, at the end of the day, I think he’s dope.
I think people were looking to see if there was going to be any kind of friction or whatever. Because you’re both White. You know, like the “White rapper spot” has to be reserved for one person.Man, that’s stupid.
Clearly.
As big as hip-hop is, you know what I mean? Like, who gives a shit? I mean, at first it was like, just to me it was like, is it because this dude is White that everyone’s automatically making comparisons? Obviously, to an extent, it is. That’s what everyone is gonna be looking for: Does he sound like Eminem? But I was flipping through the channels, and I caught something on spring break [with him performing], and I heard a song I had never heard before, and I was like, This dude sounds nothing like me.
Let’s talk about your new album. The early material to come out seems like a return to the crazy, twisted, psychopathic stuff you first came out with 10 years ago on The Slim Shady LP. Like, a serial-killer-type theme.
There’s a lot of stuff on there like that. When I came home from Orlando, out the blue, just the title, Relapse, hit me. Just the word stuck in my head… I kinda wanted to go back to what got me here in the first place. I’d asked Dre, “What do you think people want to hear from me anymore?” He’d be like, “People want to hear you lose your fuckin’ mind again.” Not only does Relapse mean coming out of rehab, but I wanted to go back to Proof’s idea of, “Let’s just say the most fucked-up shit that we can.” So I’ve kinda gone back to that direction.
Besides Dre, you’ve been working with 50 Cent again, too. How is your relationship with 50? He’s going through this whole battle with Rick Ross, with this Pimpin’ Curly stuff. How do you view all of it?
Mine and 50’s relationship has always been the same. It’s always been good. If anything, we’ve gotten closer in the last few years. 50 will just come to my house and just stay the night. Stay the weekend in one of the bedrooms and just hang out. And we talk about shit. I mean, a lot of our talk is about music, you know. But we just—we talk about shit, and we just make jokes and hang out. It doesn’t always have to be about business. You know, he’s going through this Rick Ross thing, which is kinda his thing. I guess, you know, at the moment, it’s just, let 50 do 50. I think that the Pimpin’ Curly shit is fuckin’ hilarious, though. I’m sorry, to me, that’s when 50’s at his best. When he’s doing just the funny shit. In real life, 50’s a fuckin’ clown, man. He’s actually a really funny dude.
Pictures of you came out last year where it looked like you’d gained a lot of weight. You’re back looking real chiseled now. What happened?
I gained a bunch of weight in my time off. I got lazy. I was eating a lot, just because the pills make you feel hungry. Then, just this past year, I got clean, I got sober, and I started running. I had a knee surgery last year, but as soon as I could, I hit the treadmill. So I run every day. The last couple of weeks, I’ve been up to 10 miles a day. I’ve been trying to really push myself. Just to see how much I could actually run, but I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. At the end of the day, I’m an addict. So I have addictive behavior. So I’m obsessive-compulsive about a lot of things. I’m obsessive-compulsive about my music, you know. Now I’m obsessive-compulsive about working out. I can’t do nothing in moderation… You’d think that the signs, like, all the addiction that runs in my family, I would have been a little more hip to that. But I just—I guess I wasn’t.
With all the hype surrounding your comeback, and with the terrible state of the record business, the hip-hop business in particular, do you feel like you’re coming back to save your label, or hip-hop as a genre, or even the music industry as a whole?
I don’t know if I feel like I’m coming back to save anything like that. I mean, obviously, if I can, you know, save the label and help generate more money for that, that’s great, too. But the truth is, I get bored just sitting around. I’m ready to be back out there. I love to be respected for the music that I make, and that’s what I’m in it for. The beautiful thing about this record is, I don’t expect it to do anything… Money is not necessarily something that I need anymore, so I’m doing it because I want to do it. I’m doing it because I want people to hear the music and like the music… If people like it, cool. If they don’t, they don’t. I certainly would like the benefits of what would come with it. If it could help generate more money for the label, then that’s good. But, at the end of the day, it’s just about the music.
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| Eminem on XXL 2009 |
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| Eminem on XXL 2009 |
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| Eminem on XXL 2009 |
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| Eminem on XXL 2009 |
Link: http://www.xxlmag.com/news/throwbacks/2013/10/eminem-hard-to-kill-originally-published-june-2009/4/
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