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Wednesday, December 08, 2004

The True Warrior 

Eminem’s albums stick to the script. The first single off an Eminem LP is always an over-the-top parody of politicians, musicians, and celebrities. The first single is light, catchy, and bubbly. Em wears many hats dressing as Marilyn Mansion, Osama Bin Laden and Michael Jackson, among others. The second single off a Slim Shady album usually tackles a serious issue, and has ominous beats to accompany it. His popular duet with Dido, “Stan”, dealt with over-zealous fans. “Cleaning Out My Closet,” off his last album aired the dirty laundry from his childhood, specifically his issues with his mother.

The video for “Like Toy Soldiers”, the second single off Eminem’s latest album Encore, debuted on Monday. By Tuesday it was #1 on MTV’s TRL. The song features a children’s chorus over military marching drumbeats. In the video Slim Shady is dressed in army fatigues, bandana, fatigue wristband (not army-issued I would imagine). This is a serious video. Eminem has his serious face on, literally. He pleads with the video viewer, he makes hand gestures, he points to his heart. He wants you to feel his pain. I first heard the song yesterday and I liked it. There are two extended verses. I got the basic gist of it during the first listen. He is documenting the beefs between his crew and the other brothas. Between him and Benzino. Him and the Source. 50 Cent and Ja Rule. Between Dr. Dre and Suge Knight. Etc.

I’ve heard all that before, nothing ground breaking. But there were a couple of lines towards the end of the song got me interested. Something about, ‘We still have soldiers fighting on the front lines.’ I thought this might have been a nod to the real soldiers fighting in Iraq. Coupling this with the title of the song, “Like Toy Soldiers” and the lyrics of the chorus, and I thought Eminem was on to something. I thought that maybe he did some cleaning out of his own closet and saw that battling the like of Ja Rule and Benzino was petty shyte in comparison to the real wars being fought with real soldiers. That in comparison to the war in Iraq, his battles made him nothing more than a Toy Soldier, pretending.



But I forgot just how formulaic his albums are. Eminem is funny, ironic, not afraid to dress in drag for his first single. He parodies everything, even himself in a first single. But the second single he takes himself deadly serious, dog. There is no trace of irony in the second single. He is not cracking a smile, or winking at the audience. He is dressed in full-on army fatigues for this battle in the concrete jungle. I looked up the lyrics on Ohhla.com, check it out for yourself if you are so inclined. His wars are of the 106 & Park variety. So when he raps, ‘We still have soldiers fighting on the front lines.’ The 'front lines' he is referring to turn out to be nothing more than The Vibe Awards or Club Speed. Eminem isn’t required to weigh in on global politics, or to write a song about the soldiers in Iraq. But if he isn’t going to make a statement, then he shouldn’t come up with such a potentially clever and ironic title for his song.

For some perspective on the hip hop world in relation to the world at large... Mos Def’s “What’s Beef?”

Yeah, beef is not what Ja said to 50
Beef is more than Irv not bein here with me
When a soldier ends his life with his own gun
Beef is tryin' to figure out what to tell his son
Beef is oil prices and geopolitics
Beef is Iraq, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip
Some beef is big and some beef is small
But what y'all call beef is not beef at all
Beef is real life happenin' everyday
And it's realer than them songs that you get at Kay Slay
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