Eminem

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About a year ago, I found myself in the unlikely position of facing off against author/critic Nelson George (The Death of Rhythm and Blues, Hip Hop America) on PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. The event was the 2001 Grammy Awards, the subject was Eminem and we had been invited to debate the rapper's moral merits with George taking pro and I con. Ray Suarez moderated, George postured and I rambled, meaning that three Latino, African American and Chinese American men argued over the cultural politics of a white rapper. As George might say: "only in hip-hop America".

The truly odd thing is how I even ended up there. The show's producers apparently couldn't locate any marquee critics who had actually criticized Eminem on his Marshall Mathers LP, which led them to select a relative no-name writer (i.e. me). At the time, I found it astounding that the critical support behind Em was so complete that nay sayers were in such short supply. Since then, I've come to better appreciate the roots of the Eminem love-fest (better said: I've been bludgeoned into it). What other pop or even rap artist will openly attack people as disparate as Lynn Cheney and Moby (both of whom have been publicly critical of Em), dress up as Bin Laden in his videos and still get suburban white teens to swap their N'Sync posters for ones of himself? Though he was hardly the first major white rap crossover act, Em is neither a curiosity (the Beastie Boys), a gimmick (Vanilla Ice), nor an authenticity play (3rd Bass). But for those alienated by hip-hop's black cultural cipher, Em's a familiar, accessible outlaw icon -- Waylon Jennings in a FUBU tracksuit.

This goes a long way in explaining the hypocrisy behind how the rock critic establishment jocked Em even though he's guilty of the same moral turpitude that's earned black gangsta rappers condemnations. Content-wise, Em is sometimes more shocking than even the most violent or misanthropic gangsta rapper but it's Em's ability to cast aspersions on pop culture and society that's seemed to make his transgressions more forgivable. That and he's white. I don't mean to be glib about it, but even Eminem agrees with me. On "White America", the song that begins The Eminem Show, he breaks it down: "Let's do the math/if I was black/I would have only sold half" and if that wasn't enough, he drops this incredible, lyrical coup de grace, "Look at these eyes/baby blue/baby just like yourself/if they were brown/Shady lose/Shady sits on the shelf".

In the wake of that kind of piercing self-awareness, many critics have given Em a free pass for his virulent misogynistic streak and juvenile homophobia because, gosh darnit, he's so damn clever and smart and biting (which is all true). Having grown up through a post-Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush era of skilled denial and deflection, Eminem's become the Teflon MC.

But Em still has a weak point -- himself. From a skills point of view, he's undeniably gifted and The Eminem Show is probably his best lyrical work to date. Like Jay Z or Nas, he can patter with deliberate, menacing intensity ("Square Dance") or deliriously dribble off words like Ludacris ("Superman"). More than flow though, Eminem's grown into one of hip-hop's premier lyricists, able to be gut-wrenchingly funny one moment ("My Dad's Gone Crazy") or heart-wrenchingly dark the next ("Cleanin' Out the Closet"). Here's just a taste of his deft wit and delivery from his first single, "Without Me" "testing/attention please/feel the tension/soon as someone mentions me/here's my ten cents/my two cents is free/a nuisance/who's sense?/you sent for me?"

However, even if The Eminem Show is his most mature work to date (in style more than attitude), it's also his least interesting. In a summer where "Attack of the Clones" is more of a commentary on the times than just a movie title, The Eminem Show is another formulaic sequel, a syndicated rerun of The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP. "Without Me" is obviously the new "The Real Slim Shady" (itself just an update of "My Name Is"); "Soldier" is "Criminal" redux; "Drips" feat. D12 could have been left off D12's recent Devil's Night. Eminem took two years off to put the new album together but with all that time to find new directions to move in, Eminem sticks to the same themes we've already heard twice before: Eminem as martyr, Eminem as rebel, Eminem as psycho, blah blah blah. The aim's sharper but it's still the same bullets.

Contributing to this sense of torpor is the album's listless production, overseen by Dr. Dre and Eminem himself. Like the album's lyrical themes, the beats are instantly familiar retreads from Em's previous albums -- the same bag of tricks, especially those damn artificial synthesizer melodies and bass lines. Moreover, the album's locked into mid-tempo mediocrity -- only "Without Me" really bursts into any kind of energetic fervor with its impelling bass lines and while "Square Dance"'s ominous stomp and "When the Music Stops"'s steady stride work with the slower pacing, the rest of the album melds into one long drone for lack of rhythmic diversity.

But these details aside, what makes The Eminem Show a disappointing listen is what it always comes back to: the man himself. On "Cleanin Out My Closet", a viciously personal song that attacks Em's much-maligned mother (again), the memory of Marvin Gaye's Here My Dear suddenly flashed to mind. Perhaps one of the strangest pop albums ever produced, Here My Dear was part of the divorce settlement between Gaye and Anna Gordy and the album drips in a mix between Gaye's sorrow, acerbity and introspection. When Eminem rails "remember when Ronnie died/and you said you wished it was me?/well guess what?/I am dead/as dead to you as can be" I thought of how Gaye exposed similar raw nerves too -- both artists use songs as confessionals so intense, they almost embarrass the listener with their intimacy. But the key difference is that Gaye's album was always tempered by the bittersweet realization of love's greatness and failure whereas Eminem lacks any sense of either personal repentance or generous forgiveness, settling instead for self-righteous pissiness. When, on "The Kiss", he jokes, quite unamusingly, about his well-publicized gun assault charge involving his on-again, off-again wife Kim, you realize that Eminem's disposition is no Here, My Dear but a Here Bitch, Go Fuck Yourself.

So long as he can't or won't transcend this unmerited, sanctimonious attitude, Em will be bereft of any real humility, and thus, any real humanity, a frustrating hole in the soul. For an artist who's supposed to be the maligned champion of the neglected, misunderstood masses, there's nothing particularly heroic about serving your fans a smarmy cocktail of limp, indignant fury and disingenuous self-loathing.