Category: Eminem

At Monday 20th October, 2003, Posted by Emil

Eminem was speechless for once when mates threw him a surprise birthday party. The rapper turned 31 last week so his sidekick and best mate Proof organised a treat for him.

My source in Detroit explained: “Proof took Eminem to his favourite club and told him his arch-enemy Canibus was waiting to battle him on stage.
“Em got really hyped up and was eyeballing Canibus.
“But then Proof got up and revealed the guy was actually just a look-a-like.”
Em has re-named the rapper “Canabitch”. They hate each other. But the best was yet to come.

A flabbergasted Eminem stood back as rap vets Big Daddy Kane and Doug E Fresh leapt up and performed a suprise birthday gig. My source said: “These guys are giants in the rap world. They are Eminem’s idols and he was lost for words.”

Em has reunited two other hip hop heavyweights by producing “Runnin (Dyin’ To Live)” featuring the deceased Tupac and B.I.G. for MTV movie “Tupac Resurrection”.

Source: D12World

Despite the fact Eminem has constantly been attacked by conservative people for downgrading society’s values and for being a perfect nihilist, his voice goes straight to the heart of the underprivileged of the society who have nothing else but drugs and broken dreams. Eminem is a living proof that anybody who strongly believes in his dreams and never gives up can make it. He has shown that anybody can be a hero.

Eminem also reunites white and black lower class people, his music is a strong weapon against racism. He understands the youth very well and speaks the same language as young people who often can relate to what he’s saying in his songs.

His own example as a poor white trash kid, the events he personaly went through, his determination never to give up, whatever happens, gives some hope to the poor working class.

Eminem offers some criticism about the American society and politics. The fact that he criticises American society doesn’t mean he doesn’t like his country. He’s proven to be a real patriot.

In the song “My Dad’s Gone Crazy” from the “Eminem Show”, he compares his own pain to the pain of a little girl inside of a plane, which is a clear reference to the drama of September the 11th :

More pain inside of my brain thatn the eyes of a little girl inside a plane aimed at the World Trade, standing at Ronnie’s grave, screaming at the sky.

He shows how this drama affected him and how much he’s sensitive to people’s pain.

Among all the pop stars, Eminem is the only one to raise serious debates on serious issues like society, drugs, misunderstood children, child abuse, Freedom of Speech, love and hate, murders, politics.

Eminem’s is an engaged rapper, he considers himself a political rapper. He talks and makes jokes about the “Lewinsky affair” in the “Marshall Mathers Lp’ and shows that he is clearly opposed to President Bush’s “holy crusade” against terrorism:

The boogie monster of rap , yeh, the man’s back!
With a plan to ambush the Bush administration
Moosh the Senate’s face in, push this generation
Of kids to stand for the right to say somethin
You might not like, this white hot light I’m under
No wonder I look so suburnt

The new generation is tired of the empty speeches of the government. The young generation refuses to be manipulated and to be the government’s puppets for war purposes.

Eminem’s voice sound like the voice of a “White Trash Prophet” and started opening people’s consciousness which is the first step to a new world order with more justice, hope and ,above all, free speech.

The Dirty Dozen are six emcees from Detroit (Michigan). Their names are: Eminem, Bizarre, Proof, Swift, Kon Artis and Kuniva. Each member has his alter ego, so that makes a dozen. Proof, Eminem’s best friend had the idea of making a rap group in which each member had an alter ego.

The members Deshaun Holton (a.k.a Proof a.k.a Dirty Harry); Rufus Johnson (a.k.a Bizarre a.k.a Peter S.Bizarre); O. Moore (a.k.a Swifty Mc Vay); Von Carlisle (a.k.a Hannz G. a.k.a Kuniva); and Slim Shady a.k.a Eminem a.k.a Marshall Mathers are all known separately for their talent. The group was founded by Bizarre and Proof in 1990, but it only became a complete group when Proof brought a white M.C called Eminem into the group, and Swifty.
Bugz (who died in 1999) belonged to the D12 group.

The first time Proof introduced Eminem to Kon, Artis was very surprised: “Hmm, what’s the f…? White boy at my door!”

But within two months they were all rhyming together. Eminem was writing the rhymes and Kon Artis made the beats. Bizarre says that Marshall’s race wasn’t really a novelty on the 7 Mile Eastside. In fact there were many other whites living in the black neighbourhood .The D-12 members never saw Eminem just as a white boy. “That nigga ain’t white”, Kon Artis says about his friend.” He got white in him, but he ain’t white. “

To the D-12 crew the word ‘nigga’ isn’t negative.”
Eminem showed his loyalty to the group when he went famous: the first to become famous was supposed to come back to the others, and he was the first to go to the top. He says: “Aside from everything, aside from all the bullshit ,I know I’ve got a good heart, I know where my loyalty is. Pretty much all the guys in the group have told me that they never doubted me (coming back for them) because that was our pact from way back, from when we first started the group 5 years ago.”

“The D-12 crew was including the M.C Bugz (whose real name was Karnail Paul Pitts), who was shot on May the 21st in 1999 at Detroit’s Belle Island amusement park (*).

Eminem talks about the circumstances of his death: ‘He got shot in the face twice, then run over by a car It was over some stupid shit. He wetted this girl with a water gun and these dudes came over and got their revenge.’ (*)

(*)www.eminem4ever.de.

Each D12- member has a tattoo on his forearm to remember him. He was respected in the hip hop scene and was familiar with Swift, whom he brought into the group.

Swift remembers:” Me and Bugz rapped together, laughed and got drunk together; He’s still with us, tough. Before we go on stage, we pray and he’s right there, over us.”

“He had a big influence on us. Bugz had a lot of energy and a lot of respect in the hip hop scene. He was cool to everybody.” Bizarre says.

Bugz was only 21 years old when he died. Before he died, he wanted Swift to be a member of the group and the D-12 members respected his wish and brought Swifty into the group. Bugz was supposed to perform on Friday, May the 28th, for a show in Grand Rapids (Michigan) on an Eminem tour, but he never appeared on the show. On Saturday, the sad news reached the D-12 members. The tragic death of Bugz increased the group’s determination to make an LP.

Even if Eminem produces the D-12 group, each member has his creativity and creates his own lyrics and songs. They first think about a concept, and then they try to make the beat and submit it to each other .If everybody agrees with the beat, they start to find the vocals, which word rhymes with which, other. They trust each other’s criticism.

Rufus Johnson has an interesting musical profile. He’s a member of the Dirty Dozen and of the New Jersey Outsidaz. His seven tracks EP “Attack of theWeirdos” has been successful.

Bizarre music is funny and amazing, and sometimes he makes his fans feel confused about his character. “I’m the type of guy that talks to bums. I don’t avoid to greet them. I ask them for money, before they can ask me.” ,Bizarre says.

Bizarre also has many affiliations :Outsidaz Young Zee, Pace Won, Rah Digga, Eminem, etc….He has also done concerts with Redman, Alkaholics ,and Wu- Thang Clan Method Man. Bizarre style is unorthodox and ill .Bizarre probably writes craziest rhymes of the group, and he sometimes dyes his hair green or red. He’s really amazing. His rhymes sound crazy and disturbing: “I ain’t got food in my house/My job I been cheated/ My girl had a miscarriage / I had to eat it(.”Amityville”)

Kon Artis
Kon Artis used to be a member of a group called Da Brigade (with Kuniva).

Proof
Proof, Eminem’s best friend, took place in a freestyle battle in January 2002 and was first in Source Magazine freestyle competition in New York.

Kuniva

Kuniva, who also belonged to the group Da Brigade along with Kon Artis, had an unreleased
EP, but unfortunately the label had broken up, before it was released.

Eminem
Eminem is the producer of the D-12 crew…Before being famous, he belonged to the D-12 group.

MOUNT CLEMENS — A Macomb Circuit judge threw out a $1 million lawsuit Friday filed by Eminem’s elementary school classmate against the rapper for defamation of character.

DeAngelo Bailey of Roseville sued the rapper, whose real name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III, in 2001, claiming his song “Brain Damage” depicted him in a false light. In the song, Eminem says Bailey beat him up regularly in elementary school.

Eminem asked Judge Deborah Servitto to dismiss the lawsuit, which she did.

In her written opinion, Servitto wrote a song saying Eminem’s lyrics about Bailey posed no grounds for a lawsuit.

“The lyrics are stories no one would take as fact/ They’re an exaggeration of a childish act,” Servitto wrote in her 36-line rap. “Any reasonable person could clearly see/that the lyrics could only be hyperbole.”

Bailey, a trash collector, is accused in Eminem’s song of being a bully who shoved Eminem into school lockers and broke his nose on a bathroom urinal at school.

Eminem’s lawyer, Peter Peacock, sought dismissal of the suit because he said the lyrics were true and that Bailey was an opportunist trying to cash in on the rapper’s success.

Eminem’s mother filed suit against the Roseville school district in 1982 over incidents between Bailey and Eminem at Dort Elementary School. The lawsuit was dismissed the following year because of governmental immunity.

Bailey said in court papers he never broke Eminem’s nose or beat or choked him in the school bathroom, like the 1999 song on “The Slim Shady LP” says.

Bailey’s attorney, Byron Nolen, said he was surprised Servitto wrote a rap to explain the case.

“I’m shocked that a judge would do that,” Nolen said.

There is no defamation in telling the truth. It is kind of shocking to hear those sarcastic rhymes.

Eminem’s story is a 100% true.

Bailey, who was two years older, a much bigger guy than him, terrorized him with a group of kids at Roseville Elementary School. About Marshall, D’Angelo says: “He was small, plus he had a big mouth.” According to legal sources (Debbie Mathers sued Marshall’s school), there are four recorded incidents of Marshall getting beaten up.

On October 15th, 1981, he got beaten up, was bruised, and got the wind knocked out of him. The consequences were nausea, abnormal sleepiness and had injuries on his lips and tongue.

Later November 14th, Marshall took another beating. He suffered from insomnia, vomiting, nightmares and antisocial behavior.
And it went on like this on December 21st: Marshall had injuries on his face, head, back and legs after another beating.

But the worst was to come in 1982, on January 13th. Marshall was intentionally hit with a snowball containing a heavy object, was wounded severely while lying on the ground and went into a coma. He also suffered from intermittent loss of vision in his right eye and from an intermittent loss of hearing when he woke up from the coma. When Marshall was transferred to the hospital, the doctors thought he was to die, but Marshall woke up 10 days later, and the first sentence he said was: “now I can spell elephant”. Debbie Mathers tried to sue Roseville Elementary School in 1982, because of Marshall’s head injury. She tried to prove that her son suffered from a lot of post-beating symptoms. But, unfortunately, the lawsuit was dismissed in 1983.

Who was talking about exaggeration?

Mathers, 28, who awaits trial on allegations of cocaine possession during a traffic stop on Interstate 94 on June 10, now faces charges for a Sept. 29 party held in her Warren hotel room, according to police.

Acting on a report of a disorderly person, Warren officers spotted Mathers talking on a cellular phone outside her room at the Candlewood Suites shortly before 3 a.m., according to the Macomb Daily.

Police told the paper they heard yelling and loud music coming from inside. When she opened the door, officers saw several people inside, “several” open bottles of alcohol and cigarette rolling papers, according to a police report.

When officers tried to arrest a 27-year-old Warren man after spotting a small bag of suspected marijuana and a marijuana cigarette at his feet, the man quickly put a small bag in his mouth after an officer asked him to open his clenched fist, according to the paper.

Police believe the bag contained marijuana. A struggle with the man ensued, and police gave him a burst of pepper stray to subdue and handcuff him, the paper reported.

The suspect swallowed the bag, although he denied swallowing anything, according to the report.

A 28-year-old West Bloomfield man was arrested after tossing a bag of suspected Ecstasy pills on the floor, police told the paper. Ecstasy is a popular illegal synthetic drug.

Mathers apparently told police the room was in her name and that people were using marijuana and Ecstasy at the party, the police report states.

Prosecutors expect to obtain a warrant charging Mathers with maintaining a drug house.

Maintaining a drug house is a misdemeanor punishable by up to two years in prison, a $25,000 fine, or both.

Mathers is also expected to stand trial some time next month on charges that she had cocaine in her possession during a traffic stop on June 10.

The drug charge carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.

Mathers divorced rap star Marshall Mathers, aka Eminem, in 2001. They have a daughter, Hailie Jade. Kimberly Mathers also reportedly has another daughter from a relationship after her split from Eminem.

50 Cent, Obie Trice To Tour Australia
Continue reading “5o Cent and Obie Australian Tour in December”

Superstar rapper Eminem says Britney Spears “can’t sing” and her music is “corny as hell”.

The “Stan” singer insists he has nothing against the sexy singer personally; he just doesn’t like her music.

Eminem says, “I’ve met Britney a couple of times but I’m not going to demolish her in public.

“I’m not a fan of her music though, that’s for sure. I think it’s corny as hell, but whatever. I can’t knock her for doing her thing. She sucks and she can’t sing.”

But the rapper is forced to listen to Spears’ songs – because his young daughter Hailie is a huge Britney fan. He says, “Hailie listens to Britney. She also likes Christina Aguilera, watches MTV and likes lots of people I don’t. But what am I going to do?”

In his song “Hailie’s song”, Eminem says:’’ I love my daughter more than life in itself.” Those are not only words put on a song, those are the expression of true feelings.

Eminem is well known for his vulgar vocabulary, his references to drugs and his dark humor. But there is one subject on which he never jokes: his daughter.
His feelings for his 8 year old daughter are authentic. In “Say Goodbye to Hollywood”, he states:” All I wanted was to give Hailie the life I never had.”
He’s a dedicated Daddy to his daughter, even if he barely spends time with her.

He also explains how she gave him the strengh to believe in himself and to fight for his dream to come true:

”I think that in a roundabout way she did save my life. I always had drive coming up and I always wanted to make it as a rapper. That was my dream. But when she was born, it was the reality of “I have to do this.” I had nothing else. I had no high school education. I want her to be able to grow up and look back on this and be like — whether people agree with it or not — “My dad put me on a song. My dad wrote songs for me, my dad said my name all over the place.” I want her to be able to look back in magazines and everything and just know. I don’t ever wanna be like my father was to me.”

It seems like Hailie actually saved her Daddy’s life.

Eminem also tries to protect his daughter from the media as much as possible. He wants her to live a fairly normal life. He always feels concerned about the well being of his daughter. He talks about a typical day with Hailie in a “Rolling Stone” interview:

“When I’m home, I wake her up in the morning. I feed her some cereal, watch a little TV, take her to school and pick her up.Lately, I’ve been taking her to the studio, because that’s where I spend most of my time. She has fun there, there’s video games for her and stuff.

Coloring books and crayons- thank God for those. We watch a lot of movies, just typical shit. She’s real into The Powerpuff Girls and Hey Arnold! And Dora the Explorer-ever seen that one? It’s the same episode all week long because it teaches kids numbers and how to speak Spanish; By Friday, you know it by heart. I watch that with her, then I go listen to my songs over and over. I’m gonna fucking jump off a bridge.”

Eminem also makes clean versions of his CD’s and allows Hailie only to listen to the clean versions of his songs. But he’s got a liberal attitude to education and he doesn’t hide people’s bad mouth.He doesn’t want his daughter to grow up in a close world, which is a good thing.

He takes his role as a responsible father very seriously. He’s conscious to be a father before being a rapper. He says :”I’m a father before I’m Eminem.”
Hailie goes first. He also saves a lot of his money for his daughter, because he wants her life to be different from his. He wants her to be a graduate.

In an interview from November 2002 in Vibe Magazine, he declares :”So all I can do is to be the best father and try to instil Hailie the best values, because I do care about what is said around her and done around her.”

To those who still think Marshall Mathers is a criminal, he replies in “Sing For The Moment”: “It’s all political, if my music is literal, how the fuck can I raise a little girl?”

This text is dedicated to Marshall Mathers III who will be 31 on October the 17th. Happy birthday!

Many supporters of the magazine think it has made a big mistake by taking sides in the Benzino-Eminem battle.

Last February, David Mays, CEO and founder of The Source, and I talked on the phone for almost an hour. He was trying to explain to me why he had decided to put the power and reputation of his 15-year-old magazine behind rapper Benzino’s fight with Eminem. Mays described the battle in racial, ideological terms.

”Hip-hop made me respect black people,” said Mays, a white man who started The Source while a student at Harvard. “Eminem’s impact is reversing that entire trend. White kids are growing up claiming hip-hop as their own. That’s the agenda Eminem’s machine is passing.”

What he failed to see is what’s plain to even the magazine’s supporters: That it’s an egregious conflict of interest for The Source to take sides, since, under his given name, Raymond Scott, Benzino is a co-founder and executive of the magazine.

”Benzino needs to be more professional with it,” said Wilkine Brutus, a college student who came down from Tallahassee for the Source Awards show on Monday. “He shouldn’t knock a performer as high class as Eminem.”

Everyone I talked with last week, from some of the music industry’s top leaders to young fans, think The Source has made a big mistake. The Benzino-Eminem battle has now mushroomed into a ”battle royale,” as former Source editor Selwyn Seyfu Hinds put it in February. On The Source’s side: the record label Murder, Inc. camp, including rapper Ja Rule. Many other acts, such as producers of the year The Neptunes, also turned out for the awards show and gave the magazine their respects.

”It’s unfortunate everybody can’t be a part of it,” said Cam’ron, who won the Source’s best-acting award. “But the world doesn’t stop.”

On Eminem’s side: 50 Cent, Dr. Dre, Interscope Records, and XXL magazine. 50 was the night’s big winner, but he, Em, and such top artists as Jay-Z and Missy Elliott were M.I.A. in MIA.

”It would have been great if there had been more support from artists out here,” said one executive involved in the show, who requested anonymity. “But acts are wary of lining up with a supposedly unbiased publication that’s clearly choosing sides.”

HISTORIC MOMENT

Mays won’t talk to me anymore. Upset with my February article, The Source’s publicist refused my requests for an interview and denied me credentials for covering the show — a remarkably unprofessional way for a magazine to treat journalists. So instead of being stuck in a press room, I watched from a seat bought by The Herald. Though the show was a logistical nightmare, it was also a lot of fun.

The Source’s historical timing was excellent. Last week, for the first time, the top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 were by black artists. Hip-hop is to today’s youth what rock was in the ’60s: the defining music of a generation (or two).

”I love it, mostly because hip-hop has not gone pop; pop came to hip-hop,” says Stephen Hill, the senior vice president at BET who supervised the taping (to be broadcast 8 p.m. Nov. 11).

But this historic chart moment also disproves Mays’s argument: Eminem isn’t whitewashing hip-hop; instead, pop is blacker than ever.

It’s strange that 50 Cent won three trophies. The awards are determined by a panel of DJs over whom Mays could presumably exercise influence. Did he let 50 win as some kind of olive branch? Or did he have to bow to the demands of the hip-hop community, which stands behind 50 despite The Source’s efforts to discredit him? Whenever 50’s name was announced as a nominee, the crowd cheered. Ja Rule was booed.

What’s sad about The Source war is that Mays constantly says hip-hop is a unifying music — and he’s fostered the biggest schism since the East Coast-West Coast rivalry of the ’80s.

SOCIAL WORK

The controversy also takes away from the important political and social work people in hip-hop are doing. Last Saturday, the Source Youth Foundation, which gives money to inner-city organizations, and the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, an activist group founded by Russell Simmons, held a concert and meeting. The event was moved at the last minute, received little promotion from The Source, and was the most poorly attended summit in HSAN history.

Thousands have shown up in Detroit and Philadelphia; there were about 100 people at the Caleb Center in Liberty City. Too bad, since if there’s an area that could benefit from the organization’s drive to register black voters and improve public education, it’s South Florida.

”We’re trying to build an infrastructure around a new kind of consciousness,” Simmons said Saturday. “It’s becoming in style to pay attention to social issues.”

Mays says it all the time: Hip-hop is at a historic moment. He sees it as a crisis, the cooptation of a black art form by Eminem’s ”mainstream media” minions.

But Darryl McDaniels, the DMC of legendary rap group Run-D.M.C., put it differently when he accepted the DJ of the year trophy for his slain band member, Jam Master Jay:

“This hip-hop thing is gigantic. It’s big, it’s ridiculous — and we are all in this together. We’ve got to take this hip-hop s – – – and change the world.”

The Source’s statements are becoming more and more ridiculous. We all know that hip hop is a genre created by Blacks.Eminem is very conscious of his skin color and of being a white man growing up among Blacks. I think Eminem has opened a new path to the youth…thanks to him, hip hop is becoming more universal. There is nothing bad about, if non- Blacks love black music.Moreover it is a strong weapon against racism. Eminem reunites the black and white underclasses.

According to me, music doesn’t belong to a specific ethnic group,even if it has been created by it. Music belongs to anybody , music is universal. There shouldn’t be any racism in hip hop. The Source owner’s arguments are even not credible.

NEW YORK – Afeni Shakur, the mother of rapper Tupac Shakur, says she’s touched the hip-hop community continues to be supportive, seven years after her son’s death.

“I always feel like I get special treatment. I never felt that I couldn’t ask anyone for anything,” Shakur told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday.

“I respect them, I have a lot of respect for them. I like them. They’re nice to me, and they’re good to my son.”

Shakur created Amaru Entertainment-Amaru Records after her son was shot to death in 1996, and the company has put together albums of his unreleased work.

She’s also an executive producer of a film documentary on his life, “Tupac: Resurrection,” and oversaw a book of the same name, which will be published later this month. The movie will be released in November.

Shakur says she’s relied on help from rappers including Dr. Dre and Eminem to help keep her son’s name, and music, alive.

“I’m conscious of the fact that I’m 56 trying to do my son’s work,” she said. “I don’t know that we would have been able to keep an ethical, quality project without the hip-hop community caring almost as much as me.”

On Sunday, The Source Youth Foundation will honor Shakur for her charitable work, including the creation of the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation Inc., which encourages children in the arts. The awards dinner in Miami, to be hosted by Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton, will also honor LL Cool J, Nelly, boxer Roy Jones Jr. and dancer Crazy Legs.

Shakur says receiving the award is bittersweet, because it reminds her that her son isn’t around.

“Who knows what would have happened (had he lived)?” she said.

“I’m sad that he can’t see how much people appreciate his work. I think he would have been pleased. I think he would be pleased to know how much people appreciate his mom, too.”