Of course, tell it to a kid whose only previous experience with rap was the funny music video of Cypress Hill's still-legendary hit, Insane in the Brain, and the needs-no introduction Informer by Snow (which I might've known only as "licky boom-boom down" due to Snow's heavy Jamaican accent.) I became the kid who is suddenly hit in the face with songs like My Name Is, Stan, The Real Slim Shady, Guilty Conscience, The Way I Am... and this was so different than what I was used to, so outside the zone I usually inhabited. It was sort of like the Manhattan Transfer for me, because the words took center stage and the music was just there to back them up. The flow that I didn't even know existed, the ebb and flow of it, the continuous chain of words was absolutely fascinating to me.
But it wasn't just how Em was saying it, it was what he was saying. The Marshall Mathers LP seemed to house this reflection of me at every turn. The vile hatred, the rampant violence, the sick-in-the-head humour, these were some of my favourite things. When he said something like "You better get rid of that nine, it ain't gonna help / what good is it gonna do 'gainst a man who strangles himself?" I burst out laughing; or found the sickening, violent, delirious, adrenaline-fuelled hot-blooded murder of Kim ("there's a four year old little boy layin' dead with a slit throat / in YOUR living room! / Ha-ha, what, you think I'm kiddin' you?") blood-curdling, but loved the scenery of it.
It was with songs like Kim that I was starting to see into the songs, get flashes of visual cues, imagine how the entire scene would unfold... bare trees in the humid woods, one dark night, dead leaves underfoot, an old Chevy down the road*, cars passing by every once in a while, Eminem with the knife, Kim in sweats and no shoes, and the events leading/building up to that point coming and going in flashbacks... that was what I saw, what I still see.
It was exciting for me, because the sheer unapologetic nature of his spitting, when combined with his earworm flows drilled it in deep. From the laid-back attitude of I'm Back to the deliberately nasty attitude of Remember Me? and Amityville (featuring D12!) to the juvenile fun of Criminal and the confused yet "what the hell?" of Who Knew? it was magnificent: of course, the trademark "skits" that I would follow and take cues from (Paul and Steve Berman in particular)
Listen to it now, it's still the monumental, no-holds-barred shit you ever put in your ears. Of course, it is part of an unholy trinity, as its predecessor (which very few people went back to) and successor (which was widely celebrated as a tour-de-force) were also amazing.
I remember being fascinated by rap as a form of poetry*; you had to rhyme, you had to be clever, you had to stay on topic but meander in between. It wasn't like regular poetry, or any other kind of lyricism I'd heard then - unrestrained, blunt yet eloquent, a way to vent but to do it with style. Of course, rap takes a lot of language skills and slang knowledge, as well as knowledge about the music itself. I got the more baser things. I knew who Tupac and Biggie were, I caught the more contemporary references, but some expressions went over my head and took some time to get a grasp on. I understood other references even less - I didn't learn the whole "Slim Anus" references were supposed to be about a beef Eminem was having with the Insane Clown Posse.
But what about my first love, heavy metal? Well, Eminem would be part of a hybrid army that took over popular / "heavy" music in the first few years of the 2000's.
*Footnotes: 1- It had to be a Chevrolet Nova, because, well, after the family car became obsolete by any definition, my father went out to sell it, and to get a new one with some of the cash he'd saved... and ended up being talked to buying a beat-up Chevrolet Nova that had been the official vehicle to Turkey's then President of the Republic, Süleyman Demirel, back when he was in the Justice Party (Adalet Partisi.) Having loved the Nova "N", and knowing it meant "new" in some languages, I would later choose my rap name as NoVA because I loved the damn thing. Of course, frequenting rap forums, I would be hit in a friendly semi-battle situation with the line "Who the fuck name heself after a pussy car?" which was met with, "Yeah I get my name from the Chevrolet Nova / 'cuz I came to run you ova." Not too bad a punch, if I do say so myself.
2- The freeform nature of rap drew me in and I began writing almost immediately. I owe most of my language skills to trying to write raps. Oh, I sucked in the beginning, but I could still do the horrorcore style over-the-top violence with enough blood and guts to make a mark on online forums. Since we only had our rap names, no info, some even thought I was black, which I took as a compliment. I wrote constantly, ending up with 45-bar-a-verse "songs," trying to hone my craft. I still do this from time to time, only I have a lot more to do now.
2-Addendum- Turkish rap wasn't a thing back then. We only had the West Berlin school, with the crew Cartel whom had taken the style of music and given it a mother tongue spin. Most rappers belonging to that tradition, as well as those who were trying to build the genre from the ground up would come to prominence in the upcoming years, but then, Eminem was all the rage.
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