Article response: Eminem

Authenticity alert:

What was Elvis if not a hip-swiveling version of Chuck Berry? And what were the Rolling Stones when they first appeared if not Muddy Waters with bangs and bangles? But Eminem is something else again, not just a kid with the talent to appropriate an African-American style and make it appealing to millions of whites, but someone whose life and material are authentic in themselves, giving the old style new meaning.

Urgh. But I still like Eminem enough to think he can withstand this kind of bullshit. Did anyone see him on the MTV Europe awards the other day? When he won "Best Hip Hop Artist" for the 5th year in a row, they showed a taped clip of him saying thanks to all the "crackers" at MTV Europe "for reminding me that I'm white for the 5th year in a row." Then he added, "There shouldn't even be a category for Best White Hip Hop. It's discriminatory." What do you want to bet they give it to someone non-white next year?

this guy reads eight mile far too much back into em's career, tho perhaps the bio's he's reviewing do as well.

a hip swiveling time traveling version of chuck berry apparently

Funny, when the New Yorker or the Times gets pop music wrong, it sounds to me like my dad saying "Don't go there" or "Been there, done that." But this is more like hearing my grandfather defend hip-hop to his friends--its unlikeliness and cluelessness is kind of cute, because you know somebody like Charles Rosen is reading it and lamenting how far the NYRB has fallen.

strikes me as a good article, but then again I am a big NYRB fan

I'm a fan too, John--in fact, I've been totally crushed out on the NYRB lately, like the anticipation of reading Garry Wills on the Parthenon makes me all giggly. But by "good" do you mean you came away with a new understanding of Eminem, or good for its intended audience?

Not a new understanding necessarily - but I thought the lack of any noticable stake in present-day music culture made it an enjoyable read. Certainly this article seemed to take Eminem-as-persona as a given, rather than dwelling too much on it: the author seems to think of Eminem as a writer, which I think is key. Most else I've read on the subject wants it both ways.

Don't you think the persona is a key element in the writing though? I'm not sure how you can NOT have it both ways--that's what makes him so hard to write about. And having tried it myself, I will say that writing about Eminem without sounding reductive isn't easy.

to echo the first response, it's not the moral majority eminem ought to worry about, it's well-meaning, liberal-minded yet somehow completely clueless bores like andrew o'hagan.