eminem'n'oz

[jbor]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/0107/14/entertainment/entertain103.html

Quite a good article on eminem. An excerpt:

  Which is the real Slim Shady? The real Eminem? The real Marshall
  Mathers?  Maybe all of them. Maybe none. The other thing he's
  fond of saying in his defence is that he's only play acting in
  his songs, that he's an actor ("I'm not a real person/I'm a ghost
  trapped in a beat"). Just because it's all in the first person
  doesn't make it autobiographical. The much-publicised crimes he
  has been charged with in his real life are not, by and large, the
  ones he sings about.

  And why shouldn't he have a right to act? To kill in character?
  Kurt Weill's Mack The Knife, Cole Porter's Miss Otis Regrets, Bob
  Marley's I Shot The Sheriff and the Beatles' Maxwell's Silver Hammer
  are all murder songs, all soaked in blood and not one exactly what
  you'd call apologetic. Almost 50 years ago, Johnny Cash first sang
  the line "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die" in Folsom
  Prison Blues. Last year, in the mood for a career retrospective, he
  released a whole album of his favourite death songs. Who's picketing
  his concerts?

  More recently, Garth Brooks sang about killing somebody in The Thunder
  Rolls. The Dixie Chicks did the same in Goodbye Earle. Nick Cave released
  a whole album of these gruesome tracks, Murder Ballads (on which Kylie
  was a guest), a few years back. The murder ballad has, indeed, a long
  and vaguely noble bloodline in Western songwriting.

  So why, when other artists write about similar themes, does Eminem
  attract all the negative publicity? Is it that his words are so much
  more explicit, his images more vivid? Other rappers have told stories
  just as hideous and repellent, as homophobic, misogynous and violent.
  So is it because Eminem is white? Is it because he's successful, because
  he's brought these little uglinesses into white homes?

  Is it because he's working in an artistic area, hip-hop, that is still
  foreign and just a little bit threatening to those over the age of 35?
  Would it be different if he sang country music? Or is it another form of
  prejudice? Is it that, because Eminem had what he refers to as a white
  trash upbringing, we're prepared to believe he's more likely to mean it
  all? None of these options say much that's good about us.

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