Hip Hop Matters: Pages 85-140

Summary:
Before 1999, hip hop was perceived as black folk’s music because the entire artist who performed in this genre was black. This way of thinking continued until Eminem (Slim Shady) emerged into this business. Eminem was born Marshall Bruce Marhers III on October 12, 1972. He lived outside of St.Louis to a teenage mother who survived off of welfare. His life was filled with one disappointment after another. Fortunately for him this life will be the underline success for his music career. Some of the difficulties that Eminem faced as a child was having to drop out of high school after he failed 9th grade 3 times, he had to grow up in the black projects of Detroit, he was jumped and bullied all through his school life, strange relationship with Kim Scott and the unconditional love he had for his daughters.

Although they were two completely different rappers, Eminem was compared to Vanilla Ice. Vanilla Ice was the first white rapper but he lost his credibility of being part of the streets when information leaked that everything he rapped about was fake. Eminem had to try and prove that what he rapped about was true and he had to try and crossover to both blacks and whites. The character that Eminem plays in “8-mile” is an reenactment of what he was like growing up and trying to slip his way into the hip hop business.

Eminem had to go through a lot of criticism before he was considered one of the greatest. Eminem was a sort of rebel, and he said whatever he wanted, whenever he deemed necessary. One day he had a bad experience with his current girlfriend at the time that was black. He rapped about his experience with her and it came out in a negative way. When he first entered the hip hop business, this record was released and everyone thought of him as racist for what he said, but he reassured them that he was upset and that was no way to talk about a women but he was a stupid young teen who needed to get his aggression out.

Eminem and Dr. Dre have been compared to Elvis Presley and Sam Phillips numerous times. During the 1950’s Phillips had a love for Black music. Phillips believed in the beauty and emotional power that black people but into their music and he was looking for someone to crossover to the white population so they could experience it as well, but this was almost impossible because of racial segregation. This was all until Phillips met Presley. Presley had a very powerful black voice and that was exactly the type of voice needed to crossover. They same thing happened to Eminem and Dr. Dre but in reverse. Dr. Dre was looking for another star, and that’s when he bumped into Eminem. Here was this kid who could relate to blacks and whites and was also a rebel. Dr. Dre knew he would crossover and that exactly what he did.


Quotation:
“ What whites wanted was not music, but black music, which as a results stopped really being either” (Samuel 85).

Reflection:
Due to the segregation that people were putting on music, no one could truly enjoy the music put out by different artists. By people such as Elvis Presley and Eminem, music was able to conquer all obstacles include racism and segregation. Music was created to bring a little happiness and rhythm to people lives, not to create another separation between people. Thanks too many artist in different genre's this goal was achieved. In today's day and age Eminem is able to rap with Lil Wayne and Eminem can rap with 50 cent. Your skin color does not matter anymore, the only thing that matters is your ability to produce a #1 single.