REVIEW: Eminem, The Slim Shady LP (Aftermath/Interscope)
- Joe Silva
What can a white-boy from East Detroit operating behind a cartoonish facade do about making rap music fun again? A lot if he's assisted by Dr. Dre and a few consecutive weeks of high MTV rotation. Built upon a set of goofy storylines and a few catchy tracks, what da Comic and da Chronic have wrought here is a small triumph full of attitude and rap acumen.
As freestylin' as he wants to be, and as good-humored as the Digital Underground used to be, Marshall Mathers a.k.a. Eminem makes a semi-pop occasion out of his second LP. The uncensored version of the hit "My Name Is" tells most of the tale: Long ostracized and bullied for his lack of color, he ran a tough minimum-wage race to be heard by his urban peers. Now he can poke fun at Mr. N.W.A. himself as he tells tales of his rise to notoriety.
And if nothing else on the LP turns out to be as catchy as the single, the accounts of his surviving junior high ("Brain Damage"), taking his daughter along for her mother's final ride in the trunk ("'97 Bonnie & Clyde") and accidentally helping an alterna-chick O.D. on mushrooms are enough to keep your interest afloat for the duration. He ridicules the gangsta-by-numbers posture of the kids who insist on adapting their life to the records they spin ("Role Model"), but simultaneously takes the piss out of the parental advisory by recording one of his own.
With twenty tracks of four letter reprisal for those who've long dissed his efforts, this rapper isn't worried now about who or how he offends. Because for the moment, Eminem or Slim Shady or Marshall Mathers may be laughing the loudest. He's currently en route to a city near you.
