He is one of many youths of all races who grew up in the '90s dressing, walking, talking and acting like an inner-city rapper, a generation for whom Dr. He grew up in Detroit, a lower-class kid from a single-parent home who was a 9th grade dropout, had a child out of wedlock, and latched desperately onto hip-hop as a way out of a dead-end life as a short-order cook. who dress like me, walk, talk and act like me."Įminem is indeed not alone in his musical taste, his sense of humor or his prejudices. Later came "The Real Slim Shady," in which Eminem minced across the stage over a loopy rhythm while declaring that "there's a million of us. Here was the rap icon of the moment telling the whole world to crawl in a hole and die. 1 album in the country for several weeks and in a month has already sold more than 3 million copies - an 'N Sync-size success by an 'N Sync fan's worst nightmare.Īnd he ripped into a diatribe called "The Way I Am," in which his high, nasal, Pee-wee Herman voice became a low, high-speed growl. No doubt spiked by all the controversy, Eminem's sales have made him a superstar, "arguably the most compelling figure in all pop music," Newsweek says.
And even Eminem's mother doesn't see the humor in her son's screeds she has made him the target of a $10 million defamation suit for lyrics targeting her on the rapper's previous album, the multiplatinum 1999 release "The Slim Shady LP." Aguilera proclaimed in Rolling Stone that she's "offended and really disgusted" by the rapper's explicit putdown of her in his latest single, "The Real Slim Shady." More significantly, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation calls the album's lyrics "the most blatantly offensive" it has ever seen. Reaction has been mixed: Many critics have given the album a guarded endorsement, decrying some of its content while praising Eminem for his verbal skills and his transgressive humor.