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Authors: Nick Hasted
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preaching change from his first record. White boy Marshall, almost equally radical, in part from listening to rappers like Tupac, would mask his views on race and his country at first, adopting a more cartoonish, satirical persona. As a white rapper, he had no “people” he could feel a need to address. With no vacancy for a “White Prince”, rap’s new ruler would have to start as Court Jester.
Then, there was Tupac’s attitude to women. Though his mother worked for a while, her long-time crack addiction, and raising of him in shifting locations including homeless shelters, do not compare favourably to Mathers-Briggs’ “abuses”. But, though Tupac could sometimes conform to gangsta-rap’s thuggishly misogynist standards in music and life, his first hit, ‘Brenda’s Got A Baby’, showed woman-hating was not mandatory for a mother’s boy.
“We all came from a woman, got a name from a woman …”
, he reminded, as he
“gave a holler to my sisters on welfare”
. His later ‘Dear Mama’ was similarly sympathetic. But Eminem, an equally angry young man, would offer no such forgiveness. Denied race as a playground for his rage, he would spitefully attack women in his raps. Tupac’s unlikely white replacement would not worry about
“sisters”
. Only himself.
One more element was needed to make Marshall decide to be a rapper. He might put shades on his nose, look in the mirror, and imagine he was L.L. Cool J. But the face looking back at him was too pale to ever convince. It took The Beastie Boys’
Licensed To Ill
(1986) to reassure him that needn’t matter.
“When I first heard them, I didn’t know they were white,” he told
Newsweek
. “I just thought it was the craziest shit I had ever heard. Then I saw the video and saw that they were white, and I went, ‘Wow.’ I thought, ‘Hey, I can do this.’ “
“I was like, ‘This shit is so dope !’” he added to
Spin
. “That’s when I decided I wanted to rap.”
The Beastie Boys had grown up further from Marshall’s world than Tupac or Dre. The three of them were all upper-middle class Jewish New Yorkers (continuing a bond between black and Jewish American music, with Jews as the bridge to WASPs, which stretched back to Cab Calloway hearing his jazz howl first in the wails of Harlem synagogue cantors, and which has been constant since). But the brattish, loudly obnoxious per-sonas The Beastie Boys adopted were anyway ideal inspiration for Marshall, 14 when he heard them. Layered with ear-splittingly dense rock production by Rick Rubin, the Beasties’ obvious rap skills and adoles-cently sexist and violent poses, on record, and in tours replete with caged go-go girls and court appearances for minor acts of aggression, were almost a blueprint for Eminem. That it was all just a joke and an excuse for teenagers to let off steam, to “not give a fuck”, was certainly a lesson he learned. Their biggest hit, ‘Fight For Your Right’, meanwhile, could have been written for him at 14, when
“living at home is such a drag”
, and
“Ma looks in and says ‘WHAT’S THAT NOISE?’”
, till you
“get chucked out”
. Eminem would repeat such songs of valueless teen rebellion and, not bothering with the Beasties’ faked stupidity, better them. But the important thing was that these successful white rappers existed at all.
Having found role models he could aspire to, Marshall then had his dreams dashed by a man who would in some ways be his nemesis. Vanilla Ice, whose ‘Ice Ice Baby’ (1990) was the first US rap number one, was almost a parody of the racism in the American music industry. His records were mediocre, about nothing in particular. But, with his white skin, sculpted cheekbones, and stormtrooper square-cut blond hair, he could not have looked more aggressively Aryan. It was assumed rap had found its Elvis, its commercial messiah to suck in white masses otherwise scared of black music, in Nineties America’s
Then, there was Tupac’s attitude to women. Though his mother worked for a while, her long-time crack addiction, and raising of him in shifting locations including homeless shelters, do not compare favourably to Mathers-Briggs’ “abuses”. But, though Tupac could sometimes conform to gangsta-rap’s thuggishly misogynist standards in music and life, his first hit, ‘Brenda’s Got A Baby’, showed woman-hating was not mandatory for a mother’s boy.
“We all came from a woman, got a name from a woman …”
, he reminded, as he
“gave a holler to my sisters on welfare”
. His later ‘Dear Mama’ was similarly sympathetic. But Eminem, an equally angry young man, would offer no such forgiveness. Denied race as a playground for his rage, he would spitefully attack women in his raps. Tupac’s unlikely white replacement would not worry about
“sisters”
. Only himself.
One more element was needed to make Marshall decide to be a rapper. He might put shades on his nose, look in the mirror, and imagine he was L.L. Cool J. But the face looking back at him was too pale to ever convince. It took The Beastie Boys’
Licensed To Ill
(1986) to reassure him that needn’t matter.
“When I first heard them, I didn’t know they were white,” he told
Newsweek
. “I just thought it was the craziest shit I had ever heard. Then I saw the video and saw that they were white, and I went, ‘Wow.’ I thought, ‘Hey, I can do this.’ “
“I was like, ‘This shit is so dope !’” he added to
Spin
. “That’s when I decided I wanted to rap.”
The Beastie Boys had grown up further from Marshall’s world than Tupac or Dre. The three of them were all upper-middle class Jewish New Yorkers (continuing a bond between black and Jewish American music, with Jews as the bridge to WASPs, which stretched back to Cab Calloway hearing his jazz howl first in the wails of Harlem synagogue cantors, and which has been constant since). But the brattish, loudly obnoxious per-sonas The Beastie Boys adopted were anyway ideal inspiration for Marshall, 14 when he heard them. Layered with ear-splittingly dense rock production by Rick Rubin, the Beasties’ obvious rap skills and adoles-cently sexist and violent poses, on record, and in tours replete with caged go-go girls and court appearances for minor acts of aggression, were almost a blueprint for Eminem. That it was all just a joke and an excuse for teenagers to let off steam, to “not give a fuck”, was certainly a lesson he learned. Their biggest hit, ‘Fight For Your Right’, meanwhile, could have been written for him at 14, when
“living at home is such a drag”
, and
“Ma looks in and says ‘WHAT’S THAT NOISE?’”
, till you
“get chucked out”
. Eminem would repeat such songs of valueless teen rebellion and, not bothering with the Beasties’ faked stupidity, better them. But the important thing was that these successful white rappers existed at all.
Having found role models he could aspire to, Marshall then had his dreams dashed by a man who would in some ways be his nemesis. Vanilla Ice, whose ‘Ice Ice Baby’ (1990) was the first US rap number one, was almost a parody of the racism in the American music industry. His records were mediocre, about nothing in particular. But, with his white skin, sculpted cheekbones, and stormtrooper square-cut blond hair, he could not have looked more aggressively Aryan. It was assumed rap had found its Elvis, its commercial messiah to suck in white masses otherwise scared of black music, in Nineties America’s
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