Eminem: No profanity allowed in my house!

With all due respect to 50 Cent, Lil Wayne and even Jay Z, Eminem is the baddest rapper in the business. And that he’s a white boy only makes this fact all the more extraordinary.  Actually, it’s no exaggeration to assert that Eminem is to hip hop what Tiger is to golf (Tiger’s current slump notwithstanding). 

No doubt his professional persona is greatly enhanced by his refusal to ape the likes of Fiddy and Diddy by seizing every opportunity to hawk every product from vitamin water to men’s cologne. There’s also the fact that he has studiously shunned the naked self-promoting that has turned so many celebrities into Twittering fools.

Indeed, it’s because Eminem is so notoriously averse to the publicity others crave that his profile on 60 Minutes last Sunday was such a rare treat.  And this iconic rapper only added to his appeal during what turned out to be a surprisingly reflective and introspective interview with Anderson Cooper (also of CNN 360).

As one who fancies himself a writer too, I was most intrigued by the haphazard and pack-rat way he writes. He describes his method as “stacking ammo” (i.e., ideas for songs). But what it amounts to is scribbling lyrics like chicken scratch on note pads (or on any scrap of paper at hand when a good riff comes to mind) and keeping them all stored in boxes – in no particular order. 

Not to mention the creative license he takes by “bending” words to serve the signature rhyming flow of his songs – somehow making porridge rhyme with orange for example.

What captured the attention of most media critics, however, was the red line Eminem drew between the role he plays on stage as a rapper and the one he plays at home as a daddy, especially as it pertains to the profanity that punctuates so many of his songs.  For some odd reason, many of them found something irresponsible and even hypocritical about this distinction.

But here, for the record, is the perfectly reasonable way he responded when pressed by Cooper to explain whether he feels any sense of responsibility for inducing kids to use profanity themselves:

I feel like it’s your job to parent them. If you’re the parent, be a parent. You know what I mean? I’m a parent. I have daughters. I mean, how would I really sound, as a person, like, walkin’ around my house, you know, ‘Bitch pick this up.’ You know what I mean? Like, I don’t cuss … Profanity around my house, no. But this is music, this is my art, this is what I do.

What, pray tell, is so controversial about that! And how is this any different from readily accepting that actresses who play sluts on TV do not necessarily play sluts when they go home…?

That said, the most provocative and poignant moment of the interview came when Cooper, himself a homosexual, queried Eminem about the homophobic lyrics that give so many of his songs their street cred. Here, for example, are some of the lyrics Cooper confronted him with:

My word’s like a dagger with a jagged edge that’ll stab you in the head, whether you’re a fag or a lez, pants or dress. Hate fags? The answer’s yes!

This naturally begged Cooper’s question:

[D]o you not like gay people?

The Slim Shady was understandably defensive on this subject, and the rationalization he proffered was almost as ignorant and clueless as that which black rappers proffer to justify lacing so many of their songs with the N-word. No doubt his defensiveness was heightened by current news reports about a number of kids committing suicide after being teased, and even bullied, for being gay. 

Anyway, here’s a little of the self-pitying nonsense he hemmed and hawed in reply:

Yeah, the scene that I came up in, that word was thrown around so much, you know? Faggot was, like, it was thrown around constantly, to each other, like in battling, you know what I mean? … I don’t have any problem with nobody, you know what I mean. Like, I’m just whatever…

I felt like I was being attacked. I was being singled out. And I felt like, is it because of the color of my skin? Is it because of that, you’re paying more attention? Is it because there’s certain rappers that do and say the same things that I’m saying. And I don’t hear no one saying anything about that. I didn’t just invent saying offensive things.

The not so subtle insinuation of course is that if he were black nobody would be busting his balls about his homophobic and misogynistic lyrics. Except that black rappers are continually facing such charges. In fact 50 Cent got his balls caught in a public vice grip only a couple of weeks ago for the homophobic things he said – not in his songs, but in his tweets. 

Still, Eminem needs to come to terms with the fact that being targeted in this way comes with the acclaim of being the biggest star in the game.  This, after all, is why Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are facing federal charges for lying about taking steroids, while Sammy Sosa and Andy Pettitte are taking a walk.

To be fair, though, he did share what is arguably a mitigating story about how he himself was bullied as a kid.  Indeed, with school bullying leading to a rash of tragic consequences lately, it was interesting, and even instructive, to hear this guy – who stands atop the macho world of hip hop – talking about being picked on as a kid:

Yeah, there was a few instances. Beat up in bathroom, beat up in the hallways, shoved into lockers. You know, just for, you know, for the most part, man, you know, just bein’ the new kid.

So to all of you out there with kids who, for whatever reason, are being picked on today, tell them to buck up and rest assured that they too could end up being on top of the world someday … just like Eminem.

Finally, this iconic rapper also deserves some credit for the very positive message he sent by talking about his near-death experience from a drug overdose, and also for expressing such obvious pride in being drug free for three years now.   

That’s a wrap.