The Importance of Being Eminem

Sometimes the world of hip-hop seems so pre-occupied with pursuing its various ‘beefs’ that you wish they would all just drop their pants, grab a tape measure and have done with it. Jay-Z hates Nas. 50 Cent hates Ja Rule. Nyah-nyah.

Earlier this year, all eyes were on the feud developing between little-known rapper Benzino and hip-hop’s Great White Hope / Hype (delete as applicable) Eminem. But perhaps, given the terms of this conflict, the dick-measuring solution might not have been the most appropriate. This was a brawl that was all about one issue: colour.

On a series of diss-songs, and from within the pages of The Source magazine Benzino referred to Eminem as, among other things, ‘2003 Vanilla Ice’ and ‘the rap Hitler’, and accused him of selling out Black culture. Em hit back in his own inimitable way, and was ultimately voted the winner by the record buying public, who ignored Benzino’s Redemption album and continued to push The Eminem Show into the further reaches of multi-platinumdom.

All the same, there is no doubt that Em was scarred by the battle. No matter how witty his lyrics and how slick his flow, he is always going to be The White Rapper. And, while he may have played a major roll in hauling hip-hop to the front and centre of American (and thus global) popular culture, the reason that Benzino’s ‘rap Elvis’ taunts stick is because there is some truth in them.

There is plenty in Em’s film debut ‘8-Mile’ for both the pro and anti lobbies. While he re-affirms what a dextrous and droll rapper he is – and a promising actor to boot - the film’s attempts to move the rap goalposts, while interesting, strike something of a bum note.

Eminem plays Jimmy Smith Jr., who haunts the Detroit battle-rapping scene under the name Bunny Rabbit. The film opens with Rabbit succumbing to a humiliating bout of stage fright before an unfriendly crowd, and progresses through a Rocky-style arc of self-doubt, conviction, and ultimate triumph and redemption. Encouraged by his multiracial crew of buddies, and by fickle, ambitious girlfriend Brittany Murphy, Em eventually overcomes his fear and out-battles his chief tormentor in a dazzling final set-piece.

Director Curtis Hanson takes his time in establishing a mood of working-class angst and thwarted ambition, making full use of the grey, desiccated Detroit skyline. And, while it sometimes feels ponderous, by the time of the final showdown, he has created an atmosphere so palpably oppressive you find yourself desperately rooting for Rabbit. This is also due in no small part to Eminem, who inhabits the role with what I think was slow-burning James Dean-style intensity, but might just have been boredom, or trapped wind.

It is only when you consider the film’s semi-autobiographical tone that the doubts begin to creep in. Certainly Rabbit’s story bears more than a passing resemblance to Eminem’s own, but as if refracted through a self-justifying, colour-blind lens. Em spends much of the film turning a martyred cheek to the various racial epithets thrown his way by his Black rivals, presumably because he knows that he will eventually have an epic confrontation, when he will be able to inform them that hip-hop is actually about class, not colour. While there is something in this, the fact that being Black in America is almost synonymous with poverty does not mean that being poor in America makes you Black. Nor does it change the fact that the roots of hip-hop are in Black culture.

Not that this makes Eminem any less of a legitimate player in the modern rap game. But, by rising so aggressively to the bait of Benzino and co, Em ends up giving the impression that he doth protest too much. And risks spoiling a genuinely absorbing, occasionally thrilling film with a heavy-handed, self-validating ‘message’.

In the recent documentary ‘The Importance of Being Morrissey’, the former Smiths crooner effortlessly side-stepped concerted efforts to analyse him and his life, giving the impression of a deeply self-possessed man who is content to simply, and privately, be himself. If he had any idea who Morrissey were, you sense that Eminem might envy him this. Having spent so much of his career cobbling art out of life, and being told what he is and isn’t, you wonder if even he knows who the ‘real’ Slim Shady is any more. 8-Mile is a great film, but probably brings us no closer to the truth.