Month: November 2003

Eminem’s music has cured me from so many deseases I had inside. He has been an eye opener to me.

I used to be very hurt inside from problems I had since my childhood. My mom did not suffer from Munchhausen’s syndrome and I think my childhood has been a lot happier than Marshall’s. But I think my parents have abused me emotionally. My mom used to make me believe that I would never succeed in reaching my goals. When I was 6 years old, I wanted to be a writer and my mom told me that I would never get published, that I had nothing interesting to say anyway. Words can sometimes hurt more than being knocked right in the face.

I believed what she said and began to hate myself. My parents openly showed me that I was worth nothing (in their opinion). I hated them and used to feel very guilty about that.

The song ‘Cleaning Out My Closet’ has been much more then a therapy, it has shown me that you have the right to express your rage and your anger against your parents. When you are hurt, it is sometimes so hard to let your emotions out. When I’m singing this song, I feel liberated from all the negative emotions I had kept inside for years.

I also used to care about people’s opinion about me. I didn’t dare talking back when somebody insulted me. Thanks to Eminem’s ‘just don’t give a fuck attitude’, I now dare expressing my own opinions, no matter how people will judge me or call me. I have become self confident.

I was an old fashioned person in my whole way of life, I mean in nearly everything ( my clothing, my whole attitude). I used to suffer from a lot of inhibitions. Eminem has changed all this. His lyrics have thought me to humor myself. Through some of his jokes contained in his lyrics, I understood that it was useless to take myself too seriously.

But the most important I have learnt from Marshall Mathers through his life story and also through his lyrics is that you can succeed in your goals if you work hard at it and if you believe in your dreams.
I think I have found myself in Eminem’s music. I can relate to some of his songs and his music managed to move me deep inside.

Today I’m a self confident and balanced person and it is all thanks to Eminem.

This is my interview about Eminem which was posted on a French Eminem website , The Eminem World (http://the.eminem.world.free.fr/). I’d like to share it with you.

Isabelle,how did you discover Eminem ?
My son Marcus is very fond of music channels and he made me discover Eminem in August 2001. He wanted me to watch the “Stan” video and he insisted so much that I finally accepted to see it.
A white M.C rapping was a real mystery to me and I decided to investigate more on Eminem.
I watched an “Eminem weekend” on MTV. I particularly admired his performances, his sense of humor and the particular kind of relationship he has with his public.
I heard him talking on an interview and I was impressed with his sincerity and his integrity as an artist.
I wanted to study his lyrics and that’s how I discovered a talented wordsmith with a wonderful sense of humor.

As a mom,aren’t you sometimes scared Slim Shady could be a bad influence for your son?
Absolutely not!Why? Simply because I think the parents’ role is to teach their kids (Em also said it in his interviews) to distinguish between right and wrong.
I took time for my son and me to have fun with Eminem’s music and also to study his lyrics with him.
If you take a serious look at his lyrics, you will be able to know when he’s joking or not.

“Do you think that Eminem’s success is related to his skin color ? Doesn’t he walk in the footsteps of Elvis Presley?”
No, I don’t think that the success of Eminem is related to his skin color but rather to his pugnacity, his determination to fullfill his dream and especially with his great talent to handle the words. Some of his enemies such as Benzino and Ja Rule strongly point out his skin color and and accuse him to have stolen the culture and music of Black people. He has not choosen the color of his skin!
Moreover, Eminem grew up in the black hood of Detroit. He embraces the black culture, his best friends, such as Proof de D12 are Blacks. I don’t think that one can really compare him with Elvis.”

“Do you make a difference between Eminem, Slim Shady and Marshall Bruce Mathers III? If so, which of these three characters do you prefer?”

“Yes, I make a great difference between Marshall Bruce Mathers III, Eminem and Slim Shady. Marshall corresponds, of course, to a real person, the one that I admire and who went through many torments in his childhood. I completely distinguish him from Eminem and Slim Shady which are characters of scene.

That’s why I decided to tattoo Marshall Mathers III on my left shoulder, in reference to his person and not to the artist. Eminem is his name of scene which represents its initial M&M. Eminem, for me it is the artist full with humour who fascinates his public on stage and who is so talented.

Slim Shady is the dark character who haunts Eminem. It’s its bad side, his baser instincts, his impure thoughts. And like he says it so well in “The Real Slim Shady”, “there is Slim Shady of each one of us”. Slim Shady is an alarming character, a psychopath killer and that what makes him so interesting! Because the public know he is fictionnal.

“Which of his music defines best Eminem… And which music defines best Isabelle Esling?”

Difficult question… I would say “If I had” and “Rock Bottom”, for his hard time period. “8 Mile Road” and “Lose Yourself” for his faith in his dreams; “The Way I Am” when it is exceeded
“Marshall Mathers” refers to the relationship he has with his “family”. In fact, Eminem is very complex. “Hailie’s song” can also define Eminem, it is an hymn of fatherly love.

The music which defines me best?
”Rock Bottom ” for the hard periods also…
“8 Mile Road” for my dreams and hopes. “The Real Slim Shady” for my provocative side. “Cleaning Out My Closet” for the rage accumulated since my childhood…I would also say that I find myself in Eminem because while having lived at different places and in different contexts, we have something in common. My two children are metis and I’ve been influenced a lot by African culture.

Despite his vile lyrics and wild-man rep, Eminem turns out to be a regular, run-of-the-mill dad and man about the house.

“Marshall relayed to the rest of the kids in school that fighting and violence don’t solve anything,” the friend said. “He even stayed to sign autographs.”

Published on: June 16, 2003 National Enquirer

This article draws an objective picture of Marshall Mathers in his everyday life: a regular guy who lives a normal life. It shows a good Daddy and family man who keeps simple despite his success and celebrity. This article will certainly help people understand easily that Slim Shady is only a character.Hopefully…

If I Had Life.. by Marshall Mathers

You know what I’m saying?
I’m tired of all of this bullshit
Telling me to be positive
How’m I ‘sposed to be positive when I don’t see shit positive?
Know what I’m sayin?
I rap about shit around me, shit I see
Know what I’m sayin? Right now I’m tired of everything
Tired of all this player hating that’s going on in my own city
Can’t get no airplay, you know what I’m sayin?
But ey, it’s cool though, you know what I’m sayin?
Just fed up
That’s my word

This song from the Slim Shady LP draws us a dark and pessimistic vision of life. It is linked to a hard financial period Eminem was experiencing. Some people may argue that those lyrics are so dark and depressing, but so many references to reality can be verified as true – friendship and money for instance. Very few people can claim to have experienced true friendship. Many friendships are much more hypocritical relationships based on interest than loyal friendship. Most of the time money corrupts any relationship and brings around much more fake friends and relations.

“If I Had” describes the condition of a man who is tired spinning around, with no way to escape to his current situation, tired to be hired and fired the same day, tired of doing so many different jobs. It’s the story of a man who is fed up with doing the same monotonous jobs, whose dreams always seem to break down.
He is still unsigned and feels like all doors are closed. Nobody wants to give him a real chance.

In his frustrations, his will is to make a lot of money and to stop being dominated by people. Many poor people have been through those kind of situations.

While writing this song Eminem was in a bad mood. Nothing seemed to work, he was surrounded by problems. Like he often does in many of his songs, he was expressing his feelings of the moment. Of course, if he describes the tough reality in its ugliness, he’s not supposed to be positive, is he?

A Turkish man was stabbed to death after hawking T-shirts depicting U.S. rap superstar Eminem because a man mistook the sales pitch as an insult to his mother, Turkish newspapers said on Tuesday.

A knife fight broke out in an Istanbul suburb after 19-year-old Dilaver Akkurt told T-shirt vendor Hayrettin Demir his mother was named Emine and lived in the area, Hurriyet newspaper said.

“Eminem” means “my Emine” in Turkish.

Akkurt warned Demir to stop shouting “Eminem” and to cease sales of the clothing inscribed with the star’s name and image.

Police believe Demir, who died at the scene from multiple stab wounds, was killed by a friend of Akkurt’s in the brawl in Istanbul’s Kucukcekmece district, Hurriyet said.

Police have detained Akkurt, who was being treated in hospital for wounds, and are still searching for Demir’s killer, the newspaper said.

“Basically what I was trying to do with it was take [people] back to ’95, that time when that beef was happening,” Em added. “Make them realize how ridiculous the beef was in the first place that it ever came to that level.”

Regardless of how the public receives the record, Slim Shady has already garnered the stamp of approval from those closest to Tupac — his mother, Afeni Shakur, and his clique of protégés, the Outlawz.

“It came out incredible, it’s undeniable,” Outlawz member E.D.I. said about the new “Running.” “I think [Em’s] up and coming and well on his way to being one of the top producers in the game. I think he’s going to be a force to be reckoned with, just like on the lyric side, because he puts just as much effort into the production as he does with his lyrics.”

“I think that the music is spectacular,” Afeni Shakur, who disclosed that yet another album of unreleased music from her son will come out in 2004, said about the work Em did on the “Resurrection” soundtrack. “Every time we do a Tupac record I am amazed at the quality of the product. I think everybody will be happy with it. It’s good music and it’s a good flow. It really is. I’m excited about it.”

Although the track list for the soundtrack is still being ironed out, there’s a chance we may hear Em and Pac rap on the same record. Slim Shady recorded vocals for one song that may make the cut.

“We got a song with Eminem on the ‘Resurrection’ soundtrack called ‘One Day at a Time,’ ” E.D.I. detailed. “He did the beat. It’s us, Pac and Eminem. It’s almost like we’re sending a message to the hip-hop community. I think with all the drama [Em] has been in the last year with the Murder Inc. thing — I don’t want to speak for him — but I think he kind of wanted it put it out there that this is still rap and let’s not take it to the next level and always be conscious of what happened with Tupac and Biggie.

“Let’s try to connect,” he continued, “let’s try to mend old wounds and do it one day at a time. Pac is speaking from the grave, but he’s saying, ‘Let’s all get together one day at a time.’ The record is positive and something hip-hop needs right now, especially coming from Eminem.”

— by Shaheem Reid, with reporting by Lauren Lazin

With the impending release of “Tupac: Resurrection,” which hits theaters November 14, MTV presents two shows: “Tupac: Resurrection – An MTV Movie Special” and ” Tupac: Resurrection: Soundtrack,” which premiere on MTV October 30 beginning at 11 p.m. ET.

Marshall Mathers just heard the news and was so shocked he didn’t know what to say or do. It was a moment that no rap fan will ever forget — how could they? The hip-hop community’s hearts were racing a thousand miles per second and the only thing moving faster were their minds. Everyone was angry, confused and, most of all, heartbroken.

It was September 13, 1996, and the world had just learned that one of the all-time great musical talents has passed away. Music would never be the same.

“I remember exactly where I was when I heard that Tupac died,” Eminem said solemnly. “I was cooking in a restaurant. It was me, Kuniva and Kon Artis from D12. We all had the same job. There was a big TV screen. We all just kinda watched it, just dazed. It almost didn’t feel real.”

Like all of us, the future mic king was horrified.

“I remember just the feeling of like, ‘Holy sh–!’ ” Em continued. “This is how real it got? I just remember this feeling of gloominess. A lot of the people at the job that I worked at didn’t understand Tupac or didn’t understand the music. So they were looking at us like, ‘What? What’s wrong? What’s the big deal? Get over it.’ And it’s like, ‘Nah, you don’t, you don’t understand. This is a really f—ed-up day.’ ”

September 13 was the beginning of a long period of mourning for a young Em and the rest of the hip-hop community. He’d been listening to Tupac since he was 17. Watching Shakur play out his real-life movie through the media, Em felt so connected to Pac it were as if they were growing up together. It didn’t matter that Pac came up in the ‘hoods of Baltimore and Oakland, California, and Em was growing up in Michigan. Shakur’s messages resonated loudly.

“There’s a lot of things about Pac that stood out,” Eminem said. “Personality. I guess no matter what color you was or where you came from, you felt like you could relate to him. He made you feel like you knew him. I think that honestly, Tupac was the greatest songwriter that ever lived. He made it seem so easy. The emotion was there, and feeling, and everything he was trying to describe. You saw a picture that he was trying to paint. That’s what I picked up from him, making your words so vivid that somebody can picture them in their head.”

One Tupac record that will always stick out for Slim Shady was “Dear Mama,” a song he played in his car for practically a year after it came out. Another was the tragic tale of a young mother who meets a woeful fate, “Brenda’s Got a Baby.”

This year, Eminem was given the extraordinary opportunity to put his own spin on Pac’s music when he was enlisted to produce tracks for the soundtrack to MTV Films’ “Tupac: Resurrection.” Even as he sits at the top of his game, producing the late master was an assignment Eminem never thought would come his way.

“Nah, I’d be like, ‘Get the f— out of here,’ ” Em said about ever imagining producing for one of his idols. “When they told me I got a chance to do anything for this [soundtrack], I was like, ‘OK, gimme it.’

“I just got sent a bunch of Tupac a cappellas and went crazy with them,” he said about the initial stages of the production process. “Whatever I could salvage out of anything, I just banged out a bunch of tracks. It’s not difficult when you get somebody like Tupac and you already have their vocals. All you gotta do is find the tempo of the song, and you just build the beat around it. That’s what I like to do anyway. For two or three weeks straight, we just went at it.”

The first release from the soundtrack is “Running (Dying to Live)” and is a remake of a posse cut called “Running From the Police,” where, most notably, Pac and the Notorious B.I.G. were featured. To breathe new life into the record, Em incorporated a sample of Edgar Winter’s “Dying to Live,” in addition to snippets of Tupac and Biggie interviews.

“I just got sent a bunch of Tupac a cappellas and went crazy with them.”

“It was obviously one of their earlier songs,” Em explained. “The movie is documentary style so I tried to make the song documentary style. You hear Tupac coming in with basically the last interview that he did. He was down-talking Biggie. Then after Biggie’s verse, you hear Biggie trying to downplay the [beef], basically trying to dismiss it as if it was nothing.