Eminem

By Jon Matsumoto

Aug 31 1999

In the history of hip-hop, only a handful of white rappers have managed to achieve a substantial level of street credibility and popular success.

The Beastie Boys, 3rd Bass, House of Pain -- it's a short list and even some of these artists tend to sound more suburban than urban when it comes to dropping rhymes and delivering attitude.

What makes 24-year-old Eminem (Marshall Mathers) special is that he's a white rapper capable of blurring the stylistic divide between white and black rap performers. Dr. Dre, the celebrated rap producer who helped lay down the beats on albums by the notorious N.W.A., Snoop Dogg and 2Pac, stumbled onto Eminem's independent Slim Shady EP and was immediately hooked. At the time, he knew nothing of his skin color.

Dr. Dre subsequently signed Eminem to his Interscope-distributed Aftermath Records label. Released at the beginning of this year, the artist's ensuing Slim Shady LP has sold over two million units. What has gained Eminem special attention are his raw lyrics, which are not only obscenity-peppered, but also sometimes graphically anti-social.

Eminem was raised primarily by his mother in a poor, black East Detroit neighborhood, and, in 1996, the high school dropout released his Infinite debut CD on a small Detroit label. The album was much tamer than his subsequent work and was basically ignored.

It was the far more caustic and confrontational Slim Shady that brought Eminem to the attention of Dr. Dre in 1997.

The young rapper insists that his outrageous lyrics aren't calculated attempts to grab attention and sell CDs.

"I do say things that I think will shock people," he says. "But I don't do things to shock people -- I'm not alone in feeling the way I do (about things). I believe a lot of people can relate to my (point of view)-whether white, black, it doesn't matter."