Being a former minscule fixture of the Detroit Hip-Hop scene (read: I did some smokin’ trees and rhymin’ in da cypher) of the early 90’s, I’ve always been of a split mind about Eminem.

On the one cerebral hemisphere, he’s representing the hometown well being perhaps the most technically complex rapper around. Even the quasi-autobiographical movie he made – although excellant only in it’s soundtrack – is named for the street I grew up on and still live near, 8-Mile. Yet, on the other neural lobe I could never really get into his music for its soul-crushing content .

Exhibit A

Em is either ruthlessly making fun of celebrities, as above, or venting his secret desire to be a serial killer. Imitating Perez Hilton, whom he may affectionately name “faggot”, or painting visuals that only Ted Bundy would enjoy. DO NOT get me wrong. It’s good to have some varied content in today’s hip hop sea of hoe fuckin’, bitch slappin’ and on-rims riddin‘, but is murder and prescription drug abuse the only other recourse we have for our urbanite listening pleasure?

Just listened to the ultra appropriately named new album Relapse, which ground my sense of human decency into a fine power, to be replaced with freebased apathy. The most musically pleasing song being Bagpipes from Baghdad, a Nick Cannon and Mariah Carey diss. Yes. Other rappers diss rappers, Em disses ex-girlfriends and celebrities like himself. Emo sentiment with hardcore beats and delivery.

Contrast this with Crack a Bottle, his collaboration with Dr. Dre and 50 Cent, where he tones his angst down to sound as vapid as them. I even dislike the placement of the track in the latter part of the album where he’s otherwise getting reflective about himself in songs like Deja Vu and Beautiful. These two tracks atleast reveal a human rather than the demonic persona of barking rapid fire rhymes over the previous 15 joints. He finishes with the collab money single Bottle and the discordantly jarring Underground. Clearly such disorganization is either a statement on his mind state or a reflection mp3 purchasing patterns – why make an ablum flow if folks will only download the shit they want?

Audience as therapist is his style and though it has been for a while, it’s getting old. I’m tired of paying for records of psycho-emotional shit to be injected into my ears. Artists grow or die – and perhaps Eminem is getting his wish.

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