The Influence Of Eminem’S Life Experiences On His Music
To say that Marshall Mathers, otherwise known as Eminem, has lived a difficult life is a bit of an understatement. Though many of his experiences might shock those who read his poetry or listen to his music, he believes that people are united by their pain. He said, 'I'm not alone in feeling the way I feel. I believe that a lot of people can relate to my shit – whether white, black, it doesn't matter. Everybody has been through some shit, whether it's drastic or not so drastic. Everybody gets to the point of 'I don't care' He has not let anything that has happened in his life take affect on whom he was r how he would live his life. He took the bad things in his life and turned them into a push to become a better person. Mathers had lived on his own in some of the worst places and conditions possible. Mathers grew up in an unstable, unhappy, and destructive home. This could have broken his spirit and derailed any hope of success. Rather than wallow in his pain, Mathers found courage in his experiences – courage to tell the harsh truth and courage to share this truth without shame. Mathers in his music would call out anyone that he was having trouble with. He would take whatever the situation was in his life at that time and turn his music to focus on it. He wasn’t scared to bring up anything in his music no matter what the content was about. He would talk about his destructive relationship with his mother, who never showed him love nor acceptance, or about how when he Married Kim Scott they fight then separate and then reconnect multiple times. Even after they had a daughter together they still fought. Mathers used all of his life events to help him improve who he was as a person. Marshall Mathers lived on his own for a period of time, had a very unstable marriage, and had a destructive relationship with his mother, which helped him to evolve from a bitter, angry man, to a loving father and forgiving son. Mathers grew up on the streets of Detroit in what is labeled as one of the top worst places to live as a kid.
Mathers moved around alot as a kid, moving place to place and constantly changing schools. “When I was five we moved to a real bad part of Detroit. I was getting beat up a lot, so we moved back to K. C. , then back to Detroit when I was 11. ” says Eminem. Each time that they moved, Mathers would have to adjust to the different culture of where they were. While he was in Detroit he went through tons of bullying because of his skin color. There was one case of bullying that he went through with D’Angelo Bailey, in which D’Angelo beat Eminem senseless and put him in the hospital. Once eminem was in the hospital he went through treatment in the ER and was also told that he had a cerebral hemorrhage. During his time in school he did manage to get together a group of friends that recognized his rhyming skills. This is when he met his DJ Proof. “Eminems rapping career began in the cafeteria of neighboring Osborne High School, where he and his friend DJ Proof would sneak in to take part in lunchtime rhyming contest. From the very beginning, Eminem's rapping skills were obvious. ” Marshall failed the ninth grade three times before he finally dropped out. Eminem says “‘That wasn’t because I was stupid or nothing,’ he says now. ‘It was just because I never went to school. I was enrolled, but I just never went. ” Marshall Mathers, for what seemed to be a year year in a half, began to live on his own. Only to return home when he absolutely needed to. “Soon he began performing with the groups the New Jacks and Soul Intent. With his buddy Proof, Eminem created the group the Dirty Dozen or D-12. D-12 is very dear to Eminems heart, and he still performs with them to this day. ” Eminem learned to have lots of self respect and to stand up for who he was, and what he believed in. He wasn’t scared to call out or go after whoever he wanted no matter what the problem was.
Eminem would use his music to call people when he had fights to pick or try and settle. In his music he would metion any problems he was having even if it would involve other people or celebrities. In a feud that had started between him and Christina Aguilera, because Christina during and award ceremony was talking about Eminem. She said he was cute, and that women need to watch out for abusive men though. Eminem retaliated in the song “Off the Wall” he hit back by saying “Causin' terror to Christina Aguilera/ When I grab her by the hair and drag her across the Sahara. ' (Eminem, Jenkins). He also called her out again in his song “The Real Slim Shady” when he said “Yo Shit, Christina Aguilera better switch me chairs/ So I can sit next to Carson Daly and Fred Durst/ And hear 'em argue over who she gave head to first/Little bitch, put me on blast on MTV. . . / So I have been sent here to destroy you” (Eminem-Angry Blonde). In the midst of all of these songs he was calling Christina out and trying to make her look like the bad person for calling him abusive. Eminem then turned around onto her by basically labeling her a whore. That’s only one case where he has verbally called people out in his music. He got into a big quarrel with the Insane Clown Posse which he nicknamed the insane clown pussies, during the time of the fight. It all started in ‘97 when Eminem was having a party for his newest EP release for “The Slim Shady”. He making fliers and put on there a list of musical acts that are going to come out to this release. On the flyer he put “ICP (maybe)”. When one of the groups’ members who goes by J saw the poster he confronted Eminem and asked why he put this on there without consulting them first. Eminem told them that he didn't know if they would maybe show up. J told him 'Fuck no, I ain't coming to your party. We might have, if you would've asked us first, before putting us on the fuckin' flyer like this. ' This is when Eminem retaliated in his next album in the songs “Get You Mad” and “Marshall Mathers”. In Get You Mad he says, “Lesson five: Get a hook-up at jive/Dress up like I. C. P and have them come see you perform live/And that's the key, but when you see me on the street; I ain't/Givin you shit bitch - don't even bother askin me (Get away from me!)”. This section of his poem shows how he was calling out I. C. P anyway he could, to try and give them a bad rep for the way that they dress, but this part of the song was so outta context it failed to succeed. In his song Marshall Mathers he calls them out in multiple verses from calling them pussies to faggots, to weak bitches. Through out all of this Eminem is showing that he is a person to stand up for who he is, and if you want to start something with him, be sure to be ready to put up a fight. During his time of fight with the ICP group he was also confronted by Dail. To which Eminem felt threatened and pull a Semi-automatic gun on him and threatened to use, then Dail ended up calling the cops on Mathers. Mathers was questioned by the police and then found guilty and charged with carrying a concealed weapon and brandishing it in public. This brings me back to the point of him being intrepid. Mathers got to be the intrepid person he is because of the way he grew up. A lot comes from the lessons he learned from “Livin’ Abroad” as some have put it. Eminem lived abroad for a while, some of it had to do with his relationship with his mother.
Eminem had a disastrous relationship with his mother. His mother, Debbie Mathers-Briggs, met Marshall Mathers Jr. from playing in a band together. They married shortly after she hit the legal age of 15 to get married, Mathers Jr. was twenty two. Two years later and seventy-three hours of painful and tedious labor, Marshall Mathers III was born on Oct. 17, 1972. “Parenting was apparently too much for Eminem's father. When Eminem was only six-months old, Marshall Mathers Jr. left his family to move to California, and contact between them ended. ” Mathers Jr. never looked back nor tried to reach out to his son throughout the years. “Debbie Mathers and the young Marshall moved frequently and often lived in poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods. ”. Debbie and Marshall lived wherever they could, but often moved because his mother never had a decent job and was heavy in the use of prescription painkillers. She was constantly drugged out and sometimes unconscious do to overdose. Later on down the road after years of some affection Marshalls step-brother Nathan. “Eminem has suggested that his mother suffers from Munchausen syndrome by proxy a mental illness in which a mother provokes illness or injury in her child to get attention and sympathy for herself. . . Debbie Mathers-Briggs was accused in 1996 of abusing her youngest son Nathan, by the school officials in Eminem’s old Detroit neighborhood of Saint Clair Shores. According to M. L Elrick’s salon. com article ‘Eminem's dirty secrets,’ a social worker claims that Mathers-Briggs exhibited signs of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, and added that she ‘exhibits very suspicious almost paranoid personality. ’ School officials claimed that Mathers-Briggs accused her neighbors of beating Nathan, blowing up their mailbox, and killing her dog in a satanic ritual. ” With all this lead to Eminem claiming and saying that his mom never really gave him much attention. No matter What the case was her attention was mostly focused on Nathan. “As soon as i turned fifteen, my mother told me ‘Get a job and help me pay these bills or your ass is out. ’ Then she would just kick me out anyway-half the time, right after she took most of my paycheck. . . . My mother is crazy”. This shows his mom as a crazy individual who hardly cared about him. His music represents his life has examples of how this devastating relation between mother and son played a part in what he would write.
Works Cited
- Eminem, and Sacha Jenkins. The Way I Am. New York, NY: Dutton, 2008. Print.
- Eminem. Angry Blonde. New York, NY: Regan, 2002. Print.
- 'Eminem Biography. ' The Ultimate Eminem Fansite. N. p. , n. d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. .
- 'Eminem Quotes. ' Eminem Quotes. N. p. , n. d. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. .
- 'Eminem's Biography. ' Fox News. FOX News Network, 17 Sept. 2009. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. .
- Lane, Stephanie. Eminem. San Diego: Lucent, 2004. Print.
- Serpick, Evan. 'Eminem Biography | Rolling Stone. ' Rolling Stone. N. p. , n. d. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. .
