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Was
it good and worth the money?/I'll say it was, now buy it honey!
(With
apologies to all rap artists)
I chose
Nick Halsted's Dark Story of Eminem, because I was curious about
the subject, having little experience of him apart from the fuss
in the newspapers some two years ago.
His
stage act here involved appearing as the Chainsaw Massacre character
and the press went mad. Asking a friend's daughter why her generation
was so enamoured, got the reply "Because he's looovely!"
Two
years later she is still enamoured, and I wanted to find out what
charisma a chainsaw-wielding yob could have.
Synopsis
Born
Marshall Mathers in Detroit to an early life as unstable as the
city itself - his 17 year old mother married at 15.
He
was a happy, docile baby (according to his then 'hippy' mother).
The marriage did not last and he was trailed through relatives'
houses in Detroit and Kansas City, stopping only until they were
kicked out, not staying in any place long enough to make friends.
A shy
and timid boy, forever the 'new boy' in class, he began to retreat
into other worlds, be it comic books or the tv, hence the birth
of Slim Shady later.
He
became the victim of school bullies and as a result of a brutal
assault suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and was in a coma for 5
days.
Again
they leave for Kansas City and return to Detroit when they are no
longer tolerated.
Moving
in with his grandmother, Eminem was able to attend a school long
enough to make friends - so valuable to him that when his mother
moved again he chose to walk 2 miles to his old school rather than
attend a closer one.
The
fact that he has survived a traumatic early life (and there are
several more disturbing incidents in the book) is remarkable in
itself.
There
are a lot of issues covered - it's not a 'Pop Idol story:
- white
can be the wrong colour sometimes,
- bad
parenting,
- working
in dead end jobs and being unfairly sacked before Christmas as
the new manager wants new staff,
- the
desperation of being burgled to the point there's nothing else
left to take,
- considering
suicide because you can't give your child a better life than you
had.
- how
the music industry works in the hip-hop category (must be a 'bad
boy'),
- being
sued by your nearest-and-dearest (and relatives you've never heard
of) because you now have money and they want some too,
- toying
with drugs, and managing to overcome them,
- the
price of fame and the lack of privacy,
- returning
to visit your dead-end job because they were your friends, only
to find they can't look you in the face now you're 'famous' (did
they make fun of you while you washed up there perhaps?).
But
having tasted poverty and wealth, choosing wealth and it's demons.
It's
easy to dismiss rap - as I had until this book, but having read
many of Eminem's lyrics (I was driven to find them on the web) there
is only one conclusion - he is a supreme 'word technician'.
I'm
not fond of the use of swear words, but this is a very clever and
sensitive person, and it is the 21st century.
It's
OK to say you don't like something - if you feel that way - that's
the way you are, it's OK to say the way you've treated me is not
OK and I'm very angry about it and I'm going to tell the rest of
the world and you are guilty!
If
I feel my parents should have give me a better upbringing and stayed
together for my sake, and I'm angry that you didn't, because I feel
you were selfish, I'm going to say that too! mind what If you bullied
me in school and I dreamt about killing you (so the bullying would
stop), it's alright for me to say I dreamt that. It's not PC, but
it's what a lot of us want to say sometimes.
Appraisal
Eminem
says - "I am what I am". We all are. We're never too old
to learn something, and I feel I have ... there are a lot of people
in the world that want to say what they really mean, but most of
us are scared to, especially when we don't have the word power of
Eminem.
Throughout
the book he grows, he makes his mistakes, he admits them.
He
hates his early fame, but learns to cope with it. He's a loving
father. He will go on and on, continually developing as a person
and a talent. I
Commendation
The
book is roughly 200 pages long including references, but Nick Hasted
understands the power of words too, he hasn't wasted any.
I like
the way he treats the reader as an intelligent being and does not
make an unnecessary mystery of the context.
Not
a lightweight book, but extremely interesting and an absorbing read.
.
Reviewer:
Gill Torri
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