Read Online The Dark Story of Eminem by Nick Hasted - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Nick Hasted
Ads: Link
work of the early Nineties. Dre’s
The Chronic
(1992), and his production on
Doggystyle
(1993) by Snoop Doggy Dogg, his first protégé, finessed Marshall’s favoured gangsta-rap into still more fantastic scenarios of super-pimp wealth, sex and violence, with complicating, residual touches of ghetto reality. Cube, meanwhile, a more talented rapper, kept a closer connection to the melting social situation on his home Compton streets, one of the few locations to make Detroit look good. But on his masterpiece,
The Predator
(1992), he, too, demonstrated that great rappers could turn themselves into fictional creatures on record, superheroic aliases with which to do their dirty work. In his private life, Cube was an essentially law-abiding musician. But as the Predator, he took on all the anger, paranoia and violence of South Central LA’s black population, slipping inside Rodney King’s body as the batons came down, then reappearing to gun down racist cops, till he literally exploded, laying waste whole city blocks when cornered, a lyrical thermonuclear device. This was the lineage from which Slim Shady emerged.
The final black rapper to rivet Marshall was in some ways the closest to him. Tupac Shakur (aka 2Pac) was Eminem’s predecessor as the top star on their label, Interscope. His 1996 drive-by shooting in Las Vegas by unknown assailants martyred him and, among black Americans, made him perhaps the most revered rapper of all. Album titles like
Me Against The World
(1995) – at the time, Marshall’s favourite hip-hop LP – suggested the mournful mix of deep paranoia, egotism, death wish and hurt which characterised much of Tupac’s work. But of more relevance to Marshall were the elements of social radicalism, low self-esteem and painful parental relations which he and Tupac shared.
The gangsta trappings for which Tupac became famous – trumpeted Crip affiliations, shoot-outs with cops, bragging after he was shot once, seeming to invite that second, fatal attempt, and jail-time for a rape conviction – were as much willed wish-fulfilment for him as they would have been for Marshall. Though he had lived in ghetto conditions as a child, Tupac was educated and intelligent, a trained actor, and not really tough; like the adult Marshall, the muscles he flaunted were those of a pumped-up, essentially mild-mannered stripling. He lacked Eminem’s ironically distancing wit, and pop instinct for truly overground hits (despite sometimes using Dre himself). But where the two men met was in the matter of mothers and fathers. Tupac never knew his father, either; even his mother did not know the man’s name for sure, and his only father-figure (and possible real father), Legs, appeared briefly in his teens, only to die of a crack-caused heart attack. It left Tupac feeling “unmanly”, insecurely angry, always with something to prove.
“Seeing Daddy’s semen full of crazy demons …”
, he would rap, cursed and crazed by fatherlessness, as Eminem would slit his dad’s throat
“in this dream I had”
; both felt emasculated, and could be stupidly macho. Both were products of an absentee-father America.
Tupac’s mother Afeni, meanwhile, was an ex-Black Panther, who mostly raised him alone, and would eventually become a crack addict. She called him her “Black Prince”, and filled him with revolutionary consciousness, which his records reflected. But, as poverty kept them on the move, he, like Marshall, found his sense of self a fragile, cracking thing. “I remember crying all the time,” he said. “My major thing growing up was I couldn’t fit in. Because I was from everywhere.” It could have been Marshall speaking. Shared knowledge of family breakdown would be among his strong bridges to black rap fans.
The differences between them were as acute, and revealing. As a politicised black man, Tupac could plunge straight into the racial realities of America as he saw them, directly and seriously
The Chronic
(1992), and his production on
Doggystyle
(1993) by Snoop Doggy Dogg, his first protégé, finessed Marshall’s favoured gangsta-rap into still more fantastic scenarios of super-pimp wealth, sex and violence, with complicating, residual touches of ghetto reality. Cube, meanwhile, a more talented rapper, kept a closer connection to the melting social situation on his home Compton streets, one of the few locations to make Detroit look good. But on his masterpiece,
The Predator
(1992), he, too, demonstrated that great rappers could turn themselves into fictional creatures on record, superheroic aliases with which to do their dirty work. In his private life, Cube was an essentially law-abiding musician. But as the Predator, he took on all the anger, paranoia and violence of South Central LA’s black population, slipping inside Rodney King’s body as the batons came down, then reappearing to gun down racist cops, till he literally exploded, laying waste whole city blocks when cornered, a lyrical thermonuclear device. This was the lineage from which Slim Shady emerged.
The final black rapper to rivet Marshall was in some ways the closest to him. Tupac Shakur (aka 2Pac) was Eminem’s predecessor as the top star on their label, Interscope. His 1996 drive-by shooting in Las Vegas by unknown assailants martyred him and, among black Americans, made him perhaps the most revered rapper of all. Album titles like
Me Against The World
(1995) – at the time, Marshall’s favourite hip-hop LP – suggested the mournful mix of deep paranoia, egotism, death wish and hurt which characterised much of Tupac’s work. But of more relevance to Marshall were the elements of social radicalism, low self-esteem and painful parental relations which he and Tupac shared.
The gangsta trappings for which Tupac became famous – trumpeted Crip affiliations, shoot-outs with cops, bragging after he was shot once, seeming to invite that second, fatal attempt, and jail-time for a rape conviction – were as much willed wish-fulfilment for him as they would have been for Marshall. Though he had lived in ghetto conditions as a child, Tupac was educated and intelligent, a trained actor, and not really tough; like the adult Marshall, the muscles he flaunted were those of a pumped-up, essentially mild-mannered stripling. He lacked Eminem’s ironically distancing wit, and pop instinct for truly overground hits (despite sometimes using Dre himself). But where the two men met was in the matter of mothers and fathers. Tupac never knew his father, either; even his mother did not know the man’s name for sure, and his only father-figure (and possible real father), Legs, appeared briefly in his teens, only to die of a crack-caused heart attack. It left Tupac feeling “unmanly”, insecurely angry, always with something to prove.
“Seeing Daddy’s semen full of crazy demons …”
, he would rap, cursed and crazed by fatherlessness, as Eminem would slit his dad’s throat
“in this dream I had”
; both felt emasculated, and could be stupidly macho. Both were products of an absentee-father America.
Tupac’s mother Afeni, meanwhile, was an ex-Black Panther, who mostly raised him alone, and would eventually become a crack addict. She called him her “Black Prince”, and filled him with revolutionary consciousness, which his records reflected. But, as poverty kept them on the move, he, like Marshall, found his sense of self a fragile, cracking thing. “I remember crying all the time,” he said. “My major thing growing up was I couldn’t fit in. Because I was from everywhere.” It could have been Marshall speaking. Shared knowledge of family breakdown would be among his strong bridges to black rap fans.
The differences between them were as acute, and revealing. As a politicised black man, Tupac could plunge straight into the racial realities of America as he saw them, directly and seriously
Similar Books
