Dre gave a shout out to this group on the MTV special, instructing listeners to "buy (the album) and bump it" instead of dissecting its lyrical content.
Members of this group say beats matter and lyrics are secondary, and anyone who has witnessed the discrepancy between the graphic-equalizer attention given to bass and vocals on the average car stereo owned by a member of said group knows they're telling the truth. Protests are sure to follow, a fact hinted at in a skit on the album during which Eminem meets with a label bigwig who exasperatedly points out that while labelmate Dre raps about "big-screen TVs, blunts, 40s and bitches," Em raps about homosexuals.Ī notable percentage of hip-hop listeners claims it doesn't matter to them whether the subject is big-screen TVs, gay bashing or backing dat ass up. Dre's response ("I don't care about those people") and his disdain for Loder's follow-up question ("But what if you were gay? Would it offend you?") were more indicative of the anti-gay undercurrent in hip-hop.įrom Big Daddy Kane ("The Big Daddy law is anti-faggot") to Heavy D ("You'll be happy like a faggot in jail") to Eazy-E ("This is one faggot that I had to hurt") to the Wu-Tang Clan (numerous references), hip-hop artists have a history of homophobia, although Eminem's effort is by far the most consistent and focused attack on gays ever captured on wax.
On Eminem: Hits and Disses, an MTV special dedicated to the controversy the Mathers LP sparked, Eminem told Kurt Loder that he had nothing against homosexuals and claimed that his lyrical content was ambiguous, pointing to the line "I like gay men," which comes just a few seconds after a tasteless jab at the late Gianni Versace ("Hey, it's me, Versace/whoops, somebody shot me/I was just checking the mail/get it, checking the male"). However, the latter "faggot"-filled assault reinforces the unfortunately prevalent teen trend of using "gay" or offensive descriptions of homosexuals as either an insult or a derisive adjective. And though his slam at Insane Clown Posse is rife with homophobic epithets (and it didn't take much of Em's brainpower to change Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J into "Faggy 2 Dope and Violent Gay"), it's hard to feel sympathy for his equally homophobic victims, who are quick to offer elaborate proof that they're the two straightest guys ever to spend hours daily applying makeup. Fans, friends and family of Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and 'N SYNC might be traumatized by Eminem's razor-sharp attacks on these easy targets, but most will simply chuckle at the cheap shots. Some of Eminem's venomous diatribes are easy to dismiss.
No wonder Axl Rose is waiting so long to put together the lyrics for the Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy - he'll have to come up with something a lot more devious than "One in a Million" to remain an anti-P.C. Eminem breaks one taboo after another with this thoroughly shocking LP. However, as the above excerpt suggests, Eminem's new joint distinguishes itself from the rest of the pack in other ways - namely, it's quite possibly the most potentially offensive major-label, soon-to-be-platinum record ever to be released. Eminem's flow provides the album's biggest selling point, as he moves from topic to topic with a say-anything style few rappers have been able to match since Common's Resurrection dropped in 1994. Dre, Mel-Man and others, this record jumps from one slamming track to the next, with the adrenalized "Criminal" perhaps the most potent. With tight production by Eminem himself, Dr. Marshall Mathers LP, the sophomore effort from Michigan-by-way-of-Missouri native Eminem, ranks among the year's best from a musical standpoint. hate fags? The answer's yes - Eminem, "Criminal." My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge/that'll stab you in the head/whether you're a fag or lez/.