Eminem was interviewed by record executive Steve Stoute for his first book :
"The Tanning of America: How Hip-Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy" which was released September 8, 2011 and which became a New York Times #1 best seller. Eminem talks about his experiences with hip-hop & the commercialization of the genre among other things... Read the whole interview, which appears in the book's epilogue, below:
STOUTE: People have said that 8 Mile is responsible for teaching people the history of hip-hop.
Eminem: I don’t know how much 8 Mile teaches people about the history of hip-hop, but I did have some random older folks coming up to me after the film saying things like “I saw your movie. I think I understand rap now!” If the film had that unintended effect of making people respect or understand the music more, that’s great.
STOUTE: Marshall, let’s start with the subject of aspiration. What hip-hop artist first inspired you to rap and when did you realize you had that gift for storytelling?
Eminem: Ice-T was one of the first rappers that I ever really heard, when I was ten or eleven. My uncle brought me over cassettes of Ice-T and the Breakin’ soundtrack had “Reckless” on there. That’s when I started to get into it. And then, I got turned on to Run-DMC, and got put up on the Fat Boys and then the Beastie Boys came out. And the Beastie Boys kind of got my thought process going that maybe it could be possible. Then LL probably made me actually want to do this. As a kid, I wanted to be LL. Like I literally thought I was LL, and that’s when I would start writing raps and they sounded like him. I may have said this before, but that’s who really made me start dabbling and made me really think, Wow, I can put some words together, they sound like him, but I’m able to rhyme these words and make these sentences and say them in a rhythm similar to him. But as I started to get just a little bit older, around fifteen, as far as storytelling, I remember taking a beat from Doug E. Fresh from “Play This Only at Night.”
STOUTE: Right, that was fitting. Because in those days if you wanted to hear rap on the radio the only thing you could do was listen and tape records at two in the morning. You would listen to underground hip-hop in the middle of the night because that was the only time the records would get played. And some people would go to sleep and leave the tape player on all night recording.
Eminem: Yeah, I was one of those kids. And the Doug E. Fresh record was from one of those nights when I fell asleep while I was recording. I would always go back the next day and listen to what I had recorded. Because in those days in Detroit The Wizard was on WJLB and he used to play all these great records, crazy ones that I’d never heard of before. And this was when I was first getting into hip-hop and it was—oh, my God, I’ve never heard this record! So, I’d fall asleep recording the radio and wake up in the morning to see what I’d taped and that’s how I first heard “Play This Only at Night.” There was something about that beat that made me want to tell a story over it. There was an open verse with a loop that went on for a long time so I made my own homemade loop....
STOUTE: Storytelling began with the beats. When did you know that there was something you wanted to talk about? Or did that happen from a particular experience or actual story?
Eminem: There’s a true story that happened when I was living on the east side of Detroit in a house with my mother, where I grew up pretty much all my teenage years. There was a neighbor on one side of us that apparently caught his best friend with his girlfriend, and he was beating her ass. My upstairs window was level with their’s and the shades were open and you could see everything. He beat up the dude and then started smacking her—I’m not sure how it all ended up playing out, except that my mother called the police. The next night, and I’m not making this up, on the opposite side of the house, the couple who lived there did the very same thing.
STOUTE: Everyone lived upstairs, houses close to each other, everyone on the same level?
Eminem: Right. And I’m looking through the window and damn if they aren’t doing the exact same thing. But they’re both naked. And he’s beating her ass all the way out of the house into the middle of the street. Somebody called the cops and he goes to jail and that’s how that played out. So I made a story up based on that. But this story might have even been an early version of “Love the Way You Lie” in some way because of the subject matter—me obviously not knowing it back then—but instead here I became the hero at the end. I talked about “I went downstairs in a rage, ran to the closet, grabbed the twelve gauge.” My mom had a shotgun in the closet and I pretended it was mine in the rap. In the story, I ended up shooting the dude to protect the girl and saved the day. I rapped about seeing those things happening, a story from top to bottom, and becoming a hero. That really was the first time I realized that I could rhyme words and tell a story at the same time.
STOUTE: And you didn’t look back after that. So how do you stay relevant? You’ve been doing this for twelve years and what’s important for you to do to not lose your relevance?
Eminem: The main way that I stay relevant is I study the game, I watch what’s going on, . . . I watch what other artists are doing.... Why? For one, to stay current and sound current; and two, to make sure that I don’t sound like anyone else or anything else that’s out. So I kind of get a feel for the pulse for what’s out there; I just watch and listen. And also, I think that just trying to stay competitive with myself and trying to compete with what else is out there keeps me relevant. And, most of all, by just being part of it—because I just love hip-hop.
STOUTE: There was a moment when you first really got everyone’s eyebrows raised, when you did the Biggie “Dead Wrong” remix, and everybody was “Wow, this guy is incredible.” How did that feel?
Eminem: I remember the response that I got off that record and I remember not understanding it, because some rhymes take longer to write than others and that one in particular just kinda came out quick. It didn’t take that long to write it—it was something about the beat and getting on there and being excited about being on a track with B.I.G., so it didn’t take any time. I didn’t understand why the rhymes that would really take time to craft didn’t get notice but this one did. Not that I was ever mad that it got the attention or the acceptance.
STOUTE: That’s when hip-hop just went crazy.
Eminem: That was definitely a crazy time in rap.
STOUTE: When you did that, I felt that was when the hip-hop underground, core rap guys looked at you and said, Yo, this guy is nuts. And so I wonder how important it was to you getting to that point not to be considered another “white rapper” like Vanilla Ice or MC Serch. What did you have to do to make sure that you weren’t put in their category?
Eminem: For one, I really like MC Serch a lot. . . . I love 3rd Bass, first and foremost. I couldn’t figure out who I liked better: Pete Nice or Serch. There was something about Serch’s voice and delivery that I really liked. They both had their own thing. But anyways, even though I thought they were both dope as f*ck, I felt, for one, I don’t want to sound like nobody, let alone any other white rapper. I just want to do me and be the best me I can be and go absolutely as hard as I can. And you know, back in the day, by me being competitive and going out and battling other rappers and doing that kind of thing—being on the battle scene—helped at being me a lot. Certainly, it helped for credibility matters, and it helped me to develop as a rapper.
STOUTE: Did you ever feel reverse racism? Did you ever feel that because you’re white, this is a black man’s thing? Was that a real thing you felt coming up?
Eminem: Coming up there was always a bit of that. You had people who were going to say what they wanted to say—you shouldn’t do it, just because you’re this color or because you look like this or whatever. But I also had my crew of people and my crew of supporters, with Proof being the biggest one. At that time, if I ever got discouraged, they were there for me and would tell me to just keep going.
STOUTE: When did you feel you were crossing over, that black kids liked you and white kids like you, and when did you realize that you were crossing all demographics? You had made a lot of records where you commented about not being a ***** who made records and you brought up Elvis Presley. It feels that you were conscious of that, maybe that you had the responsibility not to repeat that history.
Eminem: Well, obviously, I knew that people were going to make jokes and say what they were going to say. I felt that “crossing over” even on a smaller scale, before Dre or any of the fame or anything like that, just locally when I would do shows at places like the Hip-Hop Shop—when I would rap or freestyle or battle there and was the only white kid and started to get acceptance.... And just going up in there and getting acceptance from my peers back then was like, Wow, this actually could be possible. I was starting to gain respect from people who actually did hip-hop.
STOUTE: These were mostly black kids or maybe a few white kids now and then. But when you started really bringing different audiences together, did you realize that you were doing that? It seems to me that you felt your experience—being poor and white, coming from nothing, what I call the impoverished mind-set—was the same experience of kids of color growing up in the inner city. Were you aware that you were creating this common ground, that you were bringing like-minded kids together?
Eminem: Well, I’d love to be able to say I had a plan for all this in the beginning. But I certainly didn’t ever know it would amount to that or be like that. I remember saying to people around me, even early on before we got signed to Dre, man, if I could have a gold record and just be respected by other MCs—for the craft—that would be a dream for me. And make enough money to just survive. But as far as bringing cultures together, I can’t say. I mean, for my first album, The Slim Shady LP, there was a lot of me just poking fun at myself and others. On that album, I just let myself go. There was a lot of self-deprecation on that album, but that came from battling, from thinking, What is this guy going to say about me?; but before he says it, let me say it about myself. I brought that to the first album. And there was that underdog mentality, coming from the bottom and wanting to say something from my perspective. At the same time, certain songs had aggression to them, a feeling of I’m pissed off at the world, I feel the world has sh*t on me, so I’m gonna sh*t on it back. There was a bit of everything in the songs back then. But when I thought that everything was really coming together was when I started doing shows and seeing black people, white people, just people of all races in a f-ing sea of people. But also, around the time that I made “White America,” I was like, now I’m in Middle America making a stink.
STOUTE: And you knew that rap had never gotten a chance before to penetrate that deep?
Eminem: To an extent. If you look back, I want to say that Run-DMC really crossed those borders, too, with records like “Walk This Way.” The Fat Boys did early on, too. My thing, more so when I saw this happening, was realizing that what I was saying on my records was no different from any other underground MC. Man, listen, I’ve heard it all. I’ve heard so many f-ing crazy lines from my battling days and people saying such outlandish sh*t, it felt like now that I’ve reached this audience, now people are making a stink about it. But it wasn’t that big of a deal when I was just an underground MC. These were just things that you said—and you really didn’t think about it, you just thought, Oh, that’s a cool line, that’s crazy. Now people are making a fuss about it because it’s on a different scale. Now I’ve touched a nerve.
STOUTE: What touched a nerve with you? What was the biggest creative risk you’ve ever taken?
Eminem: Performing with Elton John at the Grammys.
STOUTE: The duet on “Stan”?
Eminem: Yeah, that was probably the biggest risk. For that time, 2001/2002.
STOUTE: You were putting everything on the line, everything you’d built.
Eminem: And him as well. He was taking a risk, too. You’ve got what people perceived as this homophobic rapper. And then you’ve got his audience and his fans and supporters and how they could have reacted—and some of mine could have been like “Yo, you’re gonna go on the stage with this openly gay guy?” Now it wouldn’t seem as crazy. But if you go back nine or ten years, it was.
STOUTE: Now that you mention it, hip-hop wasn’t all inclusive culturally. I’m not sure that it embraced homosexuality. Maybe hop-hop culture is more open-minded now, but it wasn’t ten years ago. But maybe that’s because you took the risk to open up the conversation because everyone seemed to be more relaxed after the duet. I think you’ve been changing the mind of America from the start of your career. And on that note, I wonder what advice you would give to marketers today, going forward, in the way that they ought to be speaking to youth culture and maybe what they should be watching for as to where culture is going?
Eminem: Well, let me start by saying, I’m not really big on business politics and saying the right things to corporate America. Some of the hip-hop influence in commercials is cool, especially when you sit back and you think how big rap has become—to the point that it’s crazy how big it really is. But some of the content in commercials is corny. I watch SportsCenter and the NFL channel pretty much all day. And it sometimes irks me a little to see commercials that sound like they’re written by old guys trying to be hip. But that’s also the time that you can look back and appreciate how big rap has become. Some of the guys who are running the show and making the commercials probably don’t even listen to rap because it’s not their choice of music, but they’ve probably heard so many f-ing rap songs indirectly that they don’t even realize how much it affects them.
STOUTE: Or how strong the influence is. But trying to sprinkle Ebonics in there or rap expressions isn’t real.
Eminem: It’s not real, it’s not authentic. It’s culture swiping—taking from this and you don’t know anything about it. Some of the marketing now is real and authentic, but I think the choices matter more—who you get to do the spot, what the spot is. You have to take it on a case-by-case basis.
STOUTE: Nuances matter now, more than ever, would you say? Anything else on this idea of tanning, of how hip-hop and artists like you helped get rid of the labels and the color lines? Anything else to add about where culture is headed next? Is there more to come for hip-hop and its influence?
Eminem: When you just look at how big hip-hop has grown, it’s almost to the point that you think, “This is it.” But I remember back when I was getting started with Dre, even during the Marshall Mathers LP time, when I was getting to the height of everything and it was all moving so fast, I didn’t think it could get any bigger. You look how big Jay-Z is and certain other artists are—ten years ago I didn’t think it could get any bigger. Five years ago I was positive that it couldn’t get any bigger. Five years later, here we are, and it’s still getting bigger. You know, it just keeps growing. Like the f-ing Blob.
If you're interested, purchase the book here:
STOUTE: People have said that 8 Mile is responsible for teaching people the history of hip-hop.
Eminem: I don’t know how much 8 Mile teaches people about the history of hip-hop, but I did have some random older folks coming up to me after the film saying things like “I saw your movie. I think I understand rap now!” If the film had that unintended effect of making people respect or understand the music more, that’s great.
STOUTE: Marshall, let’s start with the subject of aspiration. What hip-hop artist first inspired you to rap and when did you realize you had that gift for storytelling?
Eminem: Ice-T was one of the first rappers that I ever really heard, when I was ten or eleven. My uncle brought me over cassettes of Ice-T and the Breakin’ soundtrack had “Reckless” on there. That’s when I started to get into it. And then, I got turned on to Run-DMC, and got put up on the Fat Boys and then the Beastie Boys came out. And the Beastie Boys kind of got my thought process going that maybe it could be possible. Then LL probably made me actually want to do this. As a kid, I wanted to be LL. Like I literally thought I was LL, and that’s when I would start writing raps and they sounded like him. I may have said this before, but that’s who really made me start dabbling and made me really think, Wow, I can put some words together, they sound like him, but I’m able to rhyme these words and make these sentences and say them in a rhythm similar to him. But as I started to get just a little bit older, around fifteen, as far as storytelling, I remember taking a beat from Doug E. Fresh from “Play This Only at Night.”
STOUTE: Right, that was fitting. Because in those days if you wanted to hear rap on the radio the only thing you could do was listen and tape records at two in the morning. You would listen to underground hip-hop in the middle of the night because that was the only time the records would get played. And some people would go to sleep and leave the tape player on all night recording.
Eminem: Yeah, I was one of those kids. And the Doug E. Fresh record was from one of those nights when I fell asleep while I was recording. I would always go back the next day and listen to what I had recorded. Because in those days in Detroit The Wizard was on WJLB and he used to play all these great records, crazy ones that I’d never heard of before. And this was when I was first getting into hip-hop and it was—oh, my God, I’ve never heard this record! So, I’d fall asleep recording the radio and wake up in the morning to see what I’d taped and that’s how I first heard “Play This Only at Night.” There was something about that beat that made me want to tell a story over it. There was an open verse with a loop that went on for a long time so I made my own homemade loop....
STOUTE: Storytelling began with the beats. When did you know that there was something you wanted to talk about? Or did that happen from a particular experience or actual story?
Eminem: There’s a true story that happened when I was living on the east side of Detroit in a house with my mother, where I grew up pretty much all my teenage years. There was a neighbor on one side of us that apparently caught his best friend with his girlfriend, and he was beating her ass. My upstairs window was level with their’s and the shades were open and you could see everything. He beat up the dude and then started smacking her—I’m not sure how it all ended up playing out, except that my mother called the police. The next night, and I’m not making this up, on the opposite side of the house, the couple who lived there did the very same thing.
STOUTE: Everyone lived upstairs, houses close to each other, everyone on the same level?
Eminem: Right. And I’m looking through the window and damn if they aren’t doing the exact same thing. But they’re both naked. And he’s beating her ass all the way out of the house into the middle of the street. Somebody called the cops and he goes to jail and that’s how that played out. So I made a story up based on that. But this story might have even been an early version of “Love the Way You Lie” in some way because of the subject matter—me obviously not knowing it back then—but instead here I became the hero at the end. I talked about “I went downstairs in a rage, ran to the closet, grabbed the twelve gauge.” My mom had a shotgun in the closet and I pretended it was mine in the rap. In the story, I ended up shooting the dude to protect the girl and saved the day. I rapped about seeing those things happening, a story from top to bottom, and becoming a hero. That really was the first time I realized that I could rhyme words and tell a story at the same time.
STOUTE: And you didn’t look back after that. So how do you stay relevant? You’ve been doing this for twelve years and what’s important for you to do to not lose your relevance?
Eminem: The main way that I stay relevant is I study the game, I watch what’s going on, . . . I watch what other artists are doing.... Why? For one, to stay current and sound current; and two, to make sure that I don’t sound like anyone else or anything else that’s out. So I kind of get a feel for the pulse for what’s out there; I just watch and listen. And also, I think that just trying to stay competitive with myself and trying to compete with what else is out there keeps me relevant. And, most of all, by just being part of it—because I just love hip-hop.
STOUTE: There was a moment when you first really got everyone’s eyebrows raised, when you did the Biggie “Dead Wrong” remix, and everybody was “Wow, this guy is incredible.” How did that feel?
Eminem: I remember the response that I got off that record and I remember not understanding it, because some rhymes take longer to write than others and that one in particular just kinda came out quick. It didn’t take that long to write it—it was something about the beat and getting on there and being excited about being on a track with B.I.G., so it didn’t take any time. I didn’t understand why the rhymes that would really take time to craft didn’t get notice but this one did. Not that I was ever mad that it got the attention or the acceptance.
STOUTE: That’s when hip-hop just went crazy.
Eminem: That was definitely a crazy time in rap.
STOUTE: When you did that, I felt that was when the hip-hop underground, core rap guys looked at you and said, Yo, this guy is nuts. And so I wonder how important it was to you getting to that point not to be considered another “white rapper” like Vanilla Ice or MC Serch. What did you have to do to make sure that you weren’t put in their category?
Eminem: For one, I really like MC Serch a lot. . . . I love 3rd Bass, first and foremost. I couldn’t figure out who I liked better: Pete Nice or Serch. There was something about Serch’s voice and delivery that I really liked. They both had their own thing. But anyways, even though I thought they were both dope as f*ck, I felt, for one, I don’t want to sound like nobody, let alone any other white rapper. I just want to do me and be the best me I can be and go absolutely as hard as I can. And you know, back in the day, by me being competitive and going out and battling other rappers and doing that kind of thing—being on the battle scene—helped at being me a lot. Certainly, it helped for credibility matters, and it helped me to develop as a rapper.
STOUTE: Did you ever feel reverse racism? Did you ever feel that because you’re white, this is a black man’s thing? Was that a real thing you felt coming up?
Eminem: Coming up there was always a bit of that. You had people who were going to say what they wanted to say—you shouldn’t do it, just because you’re this color or because you look like this or whatever. But I also had my crew of people and my crew of supporters, with Proof being the biggest one. At that time, if I ever got discouraged, they were there for me and would tell me to just keep going.
STOUTE: When did you feel you were crossing over, that black kids liked you and white kids like you, and when did you realize that you were crossing all demographics? You had made a lot of records where you commented about not being a ***** who made records and you brought up Elvis Presley. It feels that you were conscious of that, maybe that you had the responsibility not to repeat that history.
Eminem: Well, obviously, I knew that people were going to make jokes and say what they were going to say. I felt that “crossing over” even on a smaller scale, before Dre or any of the fame or anything like that, just locally when I would do shows at places like the Hip-Hop Shop—when I would rap or freestyle or battle there and was the only white kid and started to get acceptance.... And just going up in there and getting acceptance from my peers back then was like, Wow, this actually could be possible. I was starting to gain respect from people who actually did hip-hop.
STOUTE: These were mostly black kids or maybe a few white kids now and then. But when you started really bringing different audiences together, did you realize that you were doing that? It seems to me that you felt your experience—being poor and white, coming from nothing, what I call the impoverished mind-set—was the same experience of kids of color growing up in the inner city. Were you aware that you were creating this common ground, that you were bringing like-minded kids together?
Eminem: Well, I’d love to be able to say I had a plan for all this in the beginning. But I certainly didn’t ever know it would amount to that or be like that. I remember saying to people around me, even early on before we got signed to Dre, man, if I could have a gold record and just be respected by other MCs—for the craft—that would be a dream for me. And make enough money to just survive. But as far as bringing cultures together, I can’t say. I mean, for my first album, The Slim Shady LP, there was a lot of me just poking fun at myself and others. On that album, I just let myself go. There was a lot of self-deprecation on that album, but that came from battling, from thinking, What is this guy going to say about me?; but before he says it, let me say it about myself. I brought that to the first album. And there was that underdog mentality, coming from the bottom and wanting to say something from my perspective. At the same time, certain songs had aggression to them, a feeling of I’m pissed off at the world, I feel the world has sh*t on me, so I’m gonna sh*t on it back. There was a bit of everything in the songs back then. But when I thought that everything was really coming together was when I started doing shows and seeing black people, white people, just people of all races in a f-ing sea of people. But also, around the time that I made “White America,” I was like, now I’m in Middle America making a stink.
STOUTE: And you knew that rap had never gotten a chance before to penetrate that deep?
Eminem: To an extent. If you look back, I want to say that Run-DMC really crossed those borders, too, with records like “Walk This Way.” The Fat Boys did early on, too. My thing, more so when I saw this happening, was realizing that what I was saying on my records was no different from any other underground MC. Man, listen, I’ve heard it all. I’ve heard so many f-ing crazy lines from my battling days and people saying such outlandish sh*t, it felt like now that I’ve reached this audience, now people are making a stink about it. But it wasn’t that big of a deal when I was just an underground MC. These were just things that you said—and you really didn’t think about it, you just thought, Oh, that’s a cool line, that’s crazy. Now people are making a fuss about it because it’s on a different scale. Now I’ve touched a nerve.
STOUTE: What touched a nerve with you? What was the biggest creative risk you’ve ever taken?
Eminem: Performing with Elton John at the Grammys.
STOUTE: The duet on “Stan”?
Eminem: Yeah, that was probably the biggest risk. For that time, 2001/2002.
STOUTE: You were putting everything on the line, everything you’d built.
Eminem: And him as well. He was taking a risk, too. You’ve got what people perceived as this homophobic rapper. And then you’ve got his audience and his fans and supporters and how they could have reacted—and some of mine could have been like “Yo, you’re gonna go on the stage with this openly gay guy?” Now it wouldn’t seem as crazy. But if you go back nine or ten years, it was.
STOUTE: Now that you mention it, hip-hop wasn’t all inclusive culturally. I’m not sure that it embraced homosexuality. Maybe hop-hop culture is more open-minded now, but it wasn’t ten years ago. But maybe that’s because you took the risk to open up the conversation because everyone seemed to be more relaxed after the duet. I think you’ve been changing the mind of America from the start of your career. And on that note, I wonder what advice you would give to marketers today, going forward, in the way that they ought to be speaking to youth culture and maybe what they should be watching for as to where culture is going?
Eminem: Well, let me start by saying, I’m not really big on business politics and saying the right things to corporate America. Some of the hip-hop influence in commercials is cool, especially when you sit back and you think how big rap has become—to the point that it’s crazy how big it really is. But some of the content in commercials is corny. I watch SportsCenter and the NFL channel pretty much all day. And it sometimes irks me a little to see commercials that sound like they’re written by old guys trying to be hip. But that’s also the time that you can look back and appreciate how big rap has become. Some of the guys who are running the show and making the commercials probably don’t even listen to rap because it’s not their choice of music, but they’ve probably heard so many f-ing rap songs indirectly that they don’t even realize how much it affects them.
STOUTE: Or how strong the influence is. But trying to sprinkle Ebonics in there or rap expressions isn’t real.
Eminem: It’s not real, it’s not authentic. It’s culture swiping—taking from this and you don’t know anything about it. Some of the marketing now is real and authentic, but I think the choices matter more—who you get to do the spot, what the spot is. You have to take it on a case-by-case basis.
STOUTE: Nuances matter now, more than ever, would you say? Anything else on this idea of tanning, of how hip-hop and artists like you helped get rid of the labels and the color lines? Anything else to add about where culture is headed next? Is there more to come for hip-hop and its influence?
Eminem: When you just look at how big hip-hop has grown, it’s almost to the point that you think, “This is it.” But I remember back when I was getting started with Dre, even during the Marshall Mathers LP time, when I was getting to the height of everything and it was all moving so fast, I didn’t think it could get any bigger. You look how big Jay-Z is and certain other artists are—ten years ago I didn’t think it could get any bigger. Five years ago I was positive that it couldn’t get any bigger. Five years later, here we are, and it’s still getting bigger. You know, it just keeps growing. Like the f-ing Blob.
If you're interested, purchase the book here:
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