Eminem

Controversy

Eminem's enemies

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Controversy

With the enormous popularity of Eminem's second album, the controversy surrounding Eminem grew even larger, especially when The Marshall Mathers LP was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Though Mathers had always claimed that his lyrics were not meant to be taken seriously, and that he had nothing against homosexuals or women, the gay rights group GLAAD organized a boycott of the Grammys. Mathers responded to this by singing "Stan" on-stage with openly gay singer Elton John, ending the performance by hugging John to show that he didn't have anything against homosexuals. Though it shocked a lot of people, this gesture failed to appease many of his critics. In later interviews, he said he did not know Elton John was gay, but that he respected him: "Of course I'd heard of Elton John," Eminem said, "but I didn't know he was gay. I didn't know anything about his personal life. I didn't really care, but being that he was gay and he had my back, I think it made a statement in itself saying that he understood where I was coming from."

The two songs most often cited as examples in The Marshall Mathers LP of Eminem's misogyny were "Kill You" and "Kim." Critics claimed the former portrayed extremely violent abuse against women in general and contained a line about Eminem raping his own mother. The latter is not so much a song as it is a reenactment of a fictional fight between Eminem and his wife, although he does rhyme his shouted, hoarse lines. Despite his conflicting expressions of love and hate throughout the track, Eminem ends up slitting Kim's throat at the end (accompanied by cries of "Bleed, bitch, bleed!"); several people objected to the graphic description of spousal abuse. On the clean version of the CD, the track was removed and replaced with a song almost entirely devoid of profanity called "The Kids."

Since Eminem's rapid ascent to fame, tell-all biographies of varying quality have been published, including Shady Bizzness by his former bodyguard Byron Williams. Eminem himself has written a book called Angry Blonde, released in 2000, where he reveals the emotions and intent behind the lyrics in the Marshall Mathers LP, and describes his passion for and approach to rapping.

As one of six members of the rap group D12, Eminem appeared on the album Devil's Night, released in 2001. The album was certified multi-platinum. The album contained the single "Purple Pills", renamed "Purple Hills" for radio play. Another song, "Blow My Buzz", was on the soundtrack for the film The Wash (2001), in which Eminem had a cameo appearance.

Album cover of The Eminem Show (2002).

Eminem's third major album, The Eminem Show was released in summer 2002. It featured the single "Without Me," an apparent sequel to "The Real Slim Shady," in which he makes derogatory comments about boy bands, *NSYNC's Chris Kirkpatrick, Limp Bizkit, Moby, and Lynne Cheney, among others. The album reflected on the impact of his rise to fame, his relationship with his wife Kim and his daughter Hailie, and his status in the hip-hop community. He also addresses the charges he faced over assaulting a bouncer he saw kissing his wife in 2000. While there is clear anger present on several tracks, this album was considerably less inflammatory than the previous, and as such did not face any protests of misogyny and homophobia that had plagued The Marshall Mathers LP.

On November 19, 2003, new controversy surrounded Eminem when a cassette tape was played during a press conference held by The Source magazine. The cassette featured Mathers performing a freestyle rap in which he made disparaging remarks about black women, calling them "dumb chicks" in comparison to white women and claimed they are only after money. Other racial slurs and remarks were on the tape, including the use of the word "nigger". Mathers claimed he made the recording after breaking up with his black girlfriend in 1988; however The Source claimed the tapes were recorded in 1994, and old friends of Eminem's claimed he never had a black girlfriend. Eminem later filed a lawsuit against The Source for alleged copyright infringement.

On December 8, 2003, the United States Secret Service admitted it was "looking into" allegations that Mathers had threatened the President of the United States after the unreleased song "We As Americans" leaked onto the internet. The lyrics in question: "Fuck money / I don't rap for dead presidents / I'd rather see the president dead / It's never been said, but I set precedents...". The song was being recorded to possibly be on Encore, but wound up on a bonus CD accompanying the album Encore. The second use of the word "dead" was edited out of that version.

Then, in 2004, Eminem made the music video "My Band" with D12. The song was the band's sarcastic response to the media's frequent portrayal of D12 as Eminem's band, giving little or no credit to its other members. The video contained various parodies, including that of the Janet Jackson "incident", and of 50 Cent's "In Da Club" video.

On October 12, 2004, a week after the release of "Just Lose It", Eminem's first video and single off Encore, Michael Jackson called into the Los Angeles-based Steve Harvey radio show to report his displeasure with the video, which parodies Jackson's child-molestation accusations, plastic surgeries, and an incident in which Jackson's hair caught on fire while filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984. The lyrics to "Just Lose It" also refer to Jackson's legal troubles. Many of Jackson's supporters and friends spoke out about the video, including Stevie Wonder who called the video "kicking a man while he's down" and "bullshit",[20] and Steve Harvey who declared, "Eminem has lost his ghetto pass. We want the pass back".[21] In the video, Eminem also parodied Pee Wee Herman, MC Hammer, and a Blonde-Ambition-touring Madonna.

Album cover of Encore (2004).

BET was the first channel to stop airing the video. MTV, however, announced it would continue airing the video, and "Just Lose It" became the #1 requested video on TRL for the week ending October 22. The Source magazine, through its CEO Raymond "Benzino" Scott, wanted not only the video to be pulled, but the song off the album, and a public apology to Jackson from Eminem, though this was likely due to his personal hatred of Eminem rather than any genuine concern for Michael.[22]

Others dismissed "Just Lose It" as a tame "Weird Al" Yankovic-style knockoff.[23] Regarding Jackson's protest, Yankovic, who parodied the Eminem song "Lose Yourself" on a track titled "Couch Potato" on his 2003 album Poodle Hat, himself told the Chicago Sun-Times, "Last year, Eminem forced me to halt production on the video for my "Lose Yourself" parody because he somehow thought that it would be harmful to his image or career. So the irony of this situation with Michael is not lost on me."

On October 26, 2004, a week before the U.S. presidential election, 2004, Eminem released the video for his song titled "Mosh" on the Internet. The song features a very strong anti-Bush message, with lyrics such as "fuck Bush" and "this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president". The video features Eminem gathering up an army of people presented as victims of the Bush administration and leading them to the White House. However, once the army breaks in, it is revealed that they are there to simply register to vote, and the video ends with the words "VOTE Tuesday November 2" on the screen. After Bush won the election, the video's ending was changed to Eminem and the protesters invading while Bush was giving a speech. On October 31, Eminem performed the song on Saturday Night Live, but some thought that he appeared to be lip-syncing the chorus, only a week after Ashlee Simpson was caught lip-syncing her performance on the program. His management observed that he was merely rapping over a backing track so as not to lose the beat, and in any case, since the Simpson incident had occurred only the week previously, Eminem made a point of lowering the microphone whenever the backing vocals were heard while he wasn't rapping. None of the publicity helped the album however, which saw its sales stall at 4.7 million copies, a number dramatically lower than his past two albums.

In summer 2005, Mathers embarked on his first US concert run in three years, the Anger Management 3 Tour, featuring Lil' Jon, 50 Cent and G-Unit, D12, Obie Trice, The Alchemist, and others. In August 2005, Eminem canceled the European leg of the tour and subsequently announced that he had entered drug rehabilitation for treatment for a "dependency on sleep medication". At the same time as he was entering rehab, his aunt and uncle, Jack and Betty Schmitt, sued Mathers, charging that he had reneged on a promise to build a $350,000 house for them and supply them with money for the house's upkeep. The couple claimed that Mathers had kept the house in his name, and then issued them eviction orders.

Eminem has made many enemies in the music industry, including Ja Rule, Benzino, Everlast, the Insane Clown Posse (although recently, at an ICP concert, they sat down with Proof of D12 and talked out their differences, officially "squashing the beef with D12"), Canibus, Vanilla Ice, Fred Durst and others.

See also: Eminem's enemies

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