Latest / DISGRACELAND / Eminem (Rewind): Taking His Shot, Pulling a Glock, and Facing the Real Slim Shady

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Eminem (Rewind): Taking His Shot, Pulling a Glock, and Facing the Real Slim Shady · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: All right. Welcome into another Rewind episode of Disgraceland here
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: in the Halloween season, it being October. We are rewinding
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: our Eminem episode, originally released back in May of 2019. Disgraceland,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: the podcast, was just over a year old at that time.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: And I remember my interest in Eminem was less about
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: sort of the, you know, the true crime, if that's
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: what you want to call it, aspects of his career
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and some of the trouble that he got into, and
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: more about the horrorcore side of the music that he made.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I found it fascinating. I felt like it bookended the
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: big lurch story that we told a few months prior
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: to this. Definitely in conversation with each other, these two
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: stories And as interested in Eminem as I was at
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the time, I did not count myself an Eminem fan.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: And I said so in the intro to this episode.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I said that Eminem, in the device about the Mellotron
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and great music and all that, I said that Eminem
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: did not make great music. And I believe that was
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: the first artist where I kind of went off script
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: there and got negative. However, since then, partially, I guess,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: in response to all the hate mail I got from
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the Eminem fans... I reconsidered Eminem's music and I truly
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: understand what a great artist and singular artist he is.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Fantastic lyricist, hip hop vocalist, producer, songwriter, pop star, whatever
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: you want to call him. He's all those things. And
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: here he is in Disgraceland. Disgraceland is a production of
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Double Elvis. The stories about Eminem are insane. He killed
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and then buried the corpse of his wife, in his
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: lyrics anyway, under the guise of a psychotic alter ego
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: he created named Slim Shady, whose lyrics set off an
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: avalanche of criticism from the media and cultural elites. He
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: feared no man or woman, real or imagined, and he
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: took no shit, not even from his own mom, who
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: eventually sued him. He was fueled by darkness and raised
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: in the shadows of a once great symbol of American
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: hard work and hustle, Detroit, Michigan. He fought his way up,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: out of the city's hip-hop underground, and fought off violent
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: attackers along the way. Charged with beating down rival musicians,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: pistol-whipping his wife's lover, and in general, for lowering American
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: standards of decency, Eminem made.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Hold up. For real. I don't like Eminem's music. I've tried.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: It does nothing for me. I don't even feel nostalgic
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: for it. But in a way, I do respect Eminem
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: as an artist for risking it, for putting it all
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: out there. And I definitely respect his hustle. But at
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, his music, it ain't my bag.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: So I can't sit here and tell you with a
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: straight face that he made great music. He made music.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Some of the most compelling music ever made. Unlike that
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: music I played you at the top of the show.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: That wasn't compelling music. That was a preset loop from
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: my Mellotron called Trailer Park Safari MK2. I played you
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: that loop because I can't afford the rights to Angel
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of Mine by Monica. And why would I play you
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: that specific slice of UK girl group cover cheese?
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Could I afford it?
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: February 23rd, 1999. And that was the day Eminem released
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the Slim Shady LP. Introducing America to one of the
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: most disturbed popular musicians of all time. A musician who
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: would eventually need no introduction, but would become reliant on
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: an ever-necessary straw man to compel and inspire him to create.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: On this episode, pistol whippings, murderous revenge fantasies, Slim Shady,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: straw men, and Eminem.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Out of nowhere, squealing tires, rustling, squeaking sneakers on the floor,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: and then the piece. Hard, steel, and in his face.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Doug Dale stared down the barrel of the gun, up
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: past the sight and the thumb on the hammer.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: He locked into the gaze of his assailant. He was unmistakable.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Those diamond-cutter blue eyes were just as intense in person
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: as they were in the paparazzi pictures and in the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: music videos. The eyes, the gun, the shaky shouting... They
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: all belonged to fellow Detroit native Marshall Mathers III. Eminem
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: to the Billboard charts for his third album. The self-titled
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Marshall Mathers LP had debuted a month previously and immediately
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: broke the record for fastest-selling album of all time. But
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: this wasn't the Marshall Mathers who Doug Dale had come
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: to know growing up in the Detroit hip-hop scene. And
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: this wasn't the Eminem that the world was currently getting
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: to know through his wildly popular brand of hip-hop. No,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: this sketchy dude with the 9mm semi-automatic pistol, the shaky voice,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: and the faraway look in his eye was none other
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: than Slim Shady. The loose cannon persona Eminem had invented
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: to give a voice to his most violent and unstable fantasies.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Slim Shady was also the most successful musical alter ego
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: since Ziggy Stardust. Slim Shady, the deranged trickster, was an
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: unstable danger to himself and others, but only lyrically.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: In theory, anyways.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: But right now, with the barrel of his gun jammed
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: into the face of Doug Dale, things weren't looking so lyrical.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Doug tried to make sense of what was happening. It
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: was a Saturday afternoon, early summer, the perfect day to
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: finally trick out the sound system on his ride. He
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: was in the parking lot of the Detroit Record Shack
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: in Royal Oak, watching the techs do their thing, when
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Eminem came around the corner. Doug noticed, of course, it
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: was Eminem, musical rival to Doug's employers, the insane clown posse.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Doug said nothing.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Just turned back to the text wiring his truck, and then,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: before he knew it, Eminem had his piece stuck in
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Doug's face and looked to have gone full tweak. His
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: hand on the pistol was steady, but his voice shook.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: What did you say to me? This wasn't beef. The
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: shit Eminem and ICP talked on records was one thing.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: This was not that. This was real. This was dangerous.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: But when the audio text poked their heads out from
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: the car to see what was going on, Some shady
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: shrank from the unwelcome attention and split. Eminem tried to
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: forget the incident, but it was impossible. What he remembered
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: most clearly wasn't the rage or the adrenaline or even
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the reason he pulled the gun in the first place.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: It was the look in Doug's eyes over the gun's sightline.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: That look said one thing.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Come on, man. You're better than this. Mr. Mathers, the judge's.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Voice was loud, commanding. Eminem pulled his thoughts out of
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the past, away from Doug Dale at the other end
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: of his gun. He scowled and looked up toward the judge,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Denise Langford Morris, who called the court to order for
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: his sentencing. He had pled no contest to carrying a
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: concealed weapon, a felony, as well as to a misdemeanor charge,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: brandishing a weapon in public, knowing full well that with
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the no contest plea, the judge could serve him up
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: five years in state prison. Eminem and his attorneys hoped
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the fact that he'd left the gun empty would be
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: enough to warrant a sentence of probation instead of prison.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: His contrition was real. Prison scared the hell out of him.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Eminem was on trial for brandishing a weapon, but it
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: felt like he was on trial for something else. For
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: corrupting America's youth. He had been targeted by Tipper Gore's
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: lobby of concern trolls, the PMRC, a.k.a. Parents Music Resource Center.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: and the editor of Billboard had issued a whole column
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: scourging Eminem as exploitative and toxic to American culture. And
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: now he had offered himself up on a silver platter,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: living down to their expectations, playing the perfect straw man.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: So if they were going to make an example of him,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: it was now or never. For all the culture warriors
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: who wanted to see the infamous Eminem tried for corrupting
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: America's youth, this was their chance. It didn't matter to
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: them what actually happened or how real his contrition was.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: The judge patted a big stack of papers by her
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: side and spoke.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Mr.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Mathers, this is just a sample of all the free
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: advice I have received from citizens around the country. It
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: seems everybody has an opinion as to what I should
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: do with you. Stoic as his expression was, Eminem couldn't
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: help but flush with embarrassment.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Imagine that.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: People, ordinary people, people he didn't know, taking time out
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: of their ordinary lives to write to this judge with
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: suggestions on how to punish him, him, And who the
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: hell was he? Why did they care? And did the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: judge just say just a sample? Look at that stack.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Who had time for this? Didn't people have better shit
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: to do? Judge Langford Morris pulled one sheet from the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: top and began to read. Please sentence Eminem to write
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: a song with clean lyrics. Laughs burbled up from the
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: audience in the courtroom. And the judge pulled another and read.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Throw the book at him, your honor. Eminem deserves to
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: rot in jail for the rest of his life. Throw
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: away the key. And the laughs stopped. M & M
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: felt rage. It hit him like a kick to the gut.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: It was familiar, almost comforting. And here was the hate
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: he knew was lurking out there. It reinforced one of
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: his guiding principles in life. That people sucked. The judge
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: looked down at M from the bench. I assure you, Mr. Mathers,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: this was far from the worst punishment offered. The words, pissy,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: condescending as fuck, and a word, well, judgy. And they
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: hit him low, made him sick to his stomach. She
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: was looking down on him, literally high up on her bench.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: He took her taunting verbal hits, and he was nine
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: years old all over again. But instead of being seated
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: in the courtroom, he was curled up on the tiled
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: floor of the school bathroom with a schoolyard bully beating
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the piss out of him. He didn't remember the moment
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: that his head had been shoved into the steel urinal handle.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: He just remembered the ringing sound afterward. And then the
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: smell of the floor. Half piss, half ammonia. Then the punches.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: The kicks.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: It wasn't even the physical pain he remembered. It was
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: the humiliation. How unnecessary it was. Reduced to a piss-soaked
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: punching bag. The judge gave America more time in her
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: court and read another letter.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Mr.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Eminem needs to have his mouth washed out with an
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: old-fashioned bar of soap. Somehow, innocent as this one was,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: this was the one that pissed him off the most.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: It was so lazy. Where was the piss?
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Pardon the pun. Where was the passion?
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Come on, America. You're better than this. But Eminem swallowed it.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: He endured every insult, quietly, stoically. But inside, The one
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and only Slim Shady did unspeakable acts to that concerned
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: letter-writing citizen with that seemingly innocent bar of soap. M &
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: M felt Slim's violent urges transform into an itch to
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: write in his notepad, and he controlled himself. Across the courtroom,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: down the barrel of a different kind of gun, M &
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: M felt the balance of power level between his eyes
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: and the woman holding his fate in her hands. So, Mr. Mathers,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: said the judge, What should we do with you? Marshall
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Mathers didn't know what to do with himself. Christmas was coming.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: It was also his daughter Haley's first birthday, and it
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: was winter in Detroit. and he was basically homeless. He
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: bounced from couch to couch, from his mom's trailer to
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Kim's place or to Kim's family's place. But now Kim's
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: was out. They were fighting again, and Kim was even
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: threatening to keep him from seeing Haley on Christmas. Making
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: matters worse, his manager at Gilbert's Lounge, the local diner
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: where he was a dishwasher and sometimes line cook, was
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: threatening to cut his shifts again. Whenever he was at work,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Kim and his mom kept calling the restaurant line incessantly,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: demanding to speak with him about whatever it was that
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: happened to be pissing them off at the moment. It
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: was becoming a real problem. Add it all up and
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: presents for his daughter were not looking likely. Merry fucking Christmas.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Which is why he snuck in through the back, hoping
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: not to be seen. He was late again, but only
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: because he took the bus. He was at a warehouse
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: show late last night. pushing copies of Infinite, the LP
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: he'd cut with local producers, the Bass Brothers. But no luck,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: so he took his lumps and indulged in sleeping late,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and ended up missing the first bus. But if the
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: second bus had been on time, that wouldn't have mattered.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: And why was he already making excuses to the shift
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: manager in his head? Fuck this noise. Marshall hustled through
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: the tunnel to the kitchen. He passed his favorite waitress, Jen,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: on her way to the floor with an order. She
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: winked at him, and he hushed her with a finger
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: to his lips as they crossed. He ducked into the
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: cook line, tied his apron, and sidled up to his
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: friend Mannix, who had hooked him up with this diner
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: gig and had a basement studio where they messed around
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: with beats. Yo, how was the show last night? Mannix
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: didn't miss a beat, but Marshall wasn't in the mood.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: He just wanted to forget his garbage life and failing record,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: lose himself in the job for a minute. Mannix read
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: his sour look. You staying with your mom again or something? Marshall,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: already going by Eminem, shrugged. He pulled his first order ticket.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Mannix shrugged too. He knew better than to try to
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: engage Marshall in a conversation when he was in a
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: bad mood. He turned to the grill just as their
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: manager poked his head in from the tunnel.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Hey Marshall, can I talk to you for a minute?
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: And there it was, the other shoe dropping.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Finally, Em met Mannix's gaze, saying with his eyes, see,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: as he walked to his doom. fired a week before Christmas,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: of course. The sad part was he didn't even blame them.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: He was missing shifts again, pushing the new record, and
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Mom and Kim called the restaurant at all hours demanding to.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Talk to him. Up until then, it had been a
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: good year.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: He'd worked hard 60-hour weeks for Haley, but it had
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: all come to this, getting fired. He dragged himself, dejected, exhausted,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: to his mother's trailer. But when he reached for the door,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: a wiry, wild-eyed punk burst out, rammed him in the
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: gut with something heavy and knocked him back onto the crabgrass.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: He heard a thud and cracking glass. Then the punk
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: was tussling with him, rolling him over into the dirt.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Adrenaline flooded his system. Eminem felt the fight rise up,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: surpassing the dejection. He felt alive, and with a sharp kick,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: he separated from his attacker, looked up and saw the
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: thief clearly for the first time, all skin and bones
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: minus a few of the usual teeth.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: He was nothing but a scarecrow. Tweaker piece of shit,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: M & M screamed.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: The thief's spattering ram had been M & M' s mother's TV,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: which now sat broken at the bottom of the trailer steps.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Just another junkie robber. This shit was practically weekly now.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Once he'd come home to find the trailer emptied out,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: everything gone except the bed. Earlier in the year, Kim's
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: scraped together college savings fund for Haley. Just a few
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars had been stolen from her place. And the
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: scarecrow caught his breath. saw the broken TV and panicked.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: He took a few erratic paces around the debris. Eminem
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: saw his chance. He sat up and felt his head swim.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: The exhaustion, the adrenaline, he could barely tell what was
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: real and what wasn't anymore. But he lunged forward, grabbed
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: the biggest shard of glass from the broken TV that
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: he could, and their eyes met over the makeshift blade,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: cutting the hand of the man wielding it more than
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: anything else. But even through his high, the tweaker could
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: see in those diamond-cutter blue eyes that this guy had
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: nothing left to lose. He was a man who had
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: hit rock bottom. And Eminem saw something in his scarecrow
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: attacker's eyes, too. He saw the kind of desperate, hollow
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: man he could become if he didn't figure his shit out.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: He'd wind up just another slim and shady criminal. The
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: tweaker held up his jittery hands and slowly backed off
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: into the darkness. Eminem held his snapped expression until he
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: was sure he was gone. Only then did he turn
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: back to the trailer door. Inside, he assessed the damage.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Drawers and cabinets emptied, everything scattered around the floor. The
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: day's mail was still on the kitchen counter looking like
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: nothing had happened.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: On the floor, court documents.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: His half-brother Nate had been taken by social services almost
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: a year ago. His school had accused their mother of
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: instability and abuse. Someone had tossed out the phrase Munchausen
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: by proxy. And now she was fighting to bring Nate home.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Maybe they were all sick, one way or another. But
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: at least for a few hours, Marshall could be sick.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: On his own, in his way.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Nobody around here treated anybody else like a human being.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Not his mom, not his girlfriend, not his job. The
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: closest person he got to tonight was the raggedy-ass robber.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: The only way to feel like a real person was
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: to lash out. He could feel his jangling nerves, his
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: unleashed fury. The whole maelstrom of pain and passion inside
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: him expand out into the empty space of the trailer,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: giving him at last at least the small room to breathe.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Suddenly, he really needed to take a shit. Hold up.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: This is true.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Eminem claims the concept of Slim Shady came to him while, well,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: you know, laying a log cabin, as Eminem calls it
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: on the Marshall Mathers LP, too. Sitting on the throne
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: like Fat Elvis, he busted out his notebook and started
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: scrawling random lines into it, page after page after page.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: After that first exhale of solitude, now he was breathing
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: all the grit and grime of the world back in, literally,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: and transforming it into lyrics. On his infinite LP, he
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: had mostly rapped about his impending fatherhood, his love for
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: his at-the-time unborn daughter, the warm and fuzzy stuff.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: But even that was fueled by darkness and trauma.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: His burning rage towards the deadbeat dad he hadn't known
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: growing up, the man who had created and then abandoned
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: the Mathers family.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Fuck that piece of shit. He would do better.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: But on Infinite, M had already begun to develop a
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: character called the Backstabber, who reveled in Marshall's darkness and trauma,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: ate that shit up, but sort of evilbugs Bonnie Groucho
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Marx as a slasher movie villain. Alone in a trailer
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: in the last light of 1996, That character blossomed fully out.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Of Marshall Mathers' inner demons. Slim Shady was born. We'll
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: be right back after this word, word, word.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Another underground show. Some industrial district just south of the airport.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: He was so sick of this grind. This time was different.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: It was October 1997, and Eminem was taking one last
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: desperate swing at making it in the rap game. This
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: wasn't Detroit, this was Inglewood, the Proud Bird nightclub. The
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: airport to the north was LAX. M had bit the
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: heads off. off of all the MCs back home in
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: rap battles by this time last year. He'd vanquished all
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: comers and got the infinite LP produced off of it.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: And it turned out none of it mattered.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: He swore last Christmas he'd get real for Haley, go
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: straight if he had to. But in his heart, he
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: felt only despair at the thought. And it gave him
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: the creative breakthrough he needed. Now, here he was, still
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: pursuing rap god fantasies. The Rap Olympics was the underground
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: battle tournament to end them all, located deep in the
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: belly of West Coast hip-hop, organized by a group called
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: the Rap Coalition, which sought to develop rap talent without
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: traditional label exploitation. The best freestyle MCs from around the
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: country had been invited to roast each other in improvised verses,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: in head-to-head, round-by-round match-ups, for the official prize of $ 500
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: and a Rolex watch. the real prize, was hidden in
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: plain sight right there in the audience that swarmed with
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: hip-hop tastemakers and the assistance of every A & R
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: rep in Los Angeles County scouting the scene for the
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: next big thing. Eminem had finally accepted that there was
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: no white trash Barry Gordy waiting for him back in Detroit.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: He didn't live in the gleaming Motor City of decades past.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: This was the 90s. He was one of the forgotten
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: men of flyover country now, just another scarecrow, a straw man.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Getting ahead meant a bigger city or bust. Eminem had
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: no time and even less money. Success was his only option.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Failure was not. Hell, the night before we hopped the
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: plane here, he'd been evicted from his shitty place. He
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: broke in anyway and slept on the cold floor.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: One more night.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Going back home meant going back to the trailer with
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: mom and Kim. Fuck.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: So it was now or never. All or nothing. One
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: night only. One last chance.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: With his viciousness elevated by his new slim, shady persona,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: he advanced through the first round like a knife through butter.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: With each cutting punchline that he spat out, he thought
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: back to his hellish past year. A night last winter,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: staying with Jen, his waitress friend, he performed 97 Bonnie
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: and Clyde for her, the Eminem tune he'd written where
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: he and his daughter Haley get rid of the corpse
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: of his wife, Kim, and go on the run together.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Jen was no fan of Kim's. She understood where Eminem
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: was coming from emotionally. and there was a reason he
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: was staying with her, but still, she found the misogyny
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: of the punchline disturbing. Slim Shady was someone she didn't recognize.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Yet here in L.A., just as he had seen happen
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: in Detroit over the years, when these overwhelmingly black crowds
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: saw what his flow could do, he became the hot-hand underdog,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: despite the color of his skin. Maybe to them he
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: was a carnival act, a freak show, but he was
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: also the best. He dominated round twos. He remembered returning
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: to the job at the diner one last time. Jen
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: and Mike putting good words and money coming in meant
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: seeing Kim and Haley again. So he walked up to
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the service entrance where his line cook friend Mannix was
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: smoking out back with another local rapper, Buddha Full of Rhymes.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Mannix must have played the basement demo of the track
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Rock Bottom for Buddha because Buddha said, Em, why are
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: you talking all this guns.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: And rape bullshit? That ain't you.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Fuck Buddha, my life is trash enough as it is.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: I gotta be me and my rhymes too. Buddha understood
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Slim Shady after that. So did the crowd as Em
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: entered round three. By this time, the West Coast crowd
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: was going wild for the Midwest.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Kid with the bars. Who was this dude?
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Some of them took a free copy of Em's Hail
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Mary mixtape, the Slim Shady EP. Back on stage, Slim
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: himself was focused solely on the win.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Round four was a formality. He didn't even have to
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: think about it anymore. He was unconscious. The words just flowed.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: He unleashed a hurricane of feeling, and he had finally
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: figured out how to stay in the eye of the
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: storm and reap the whirlwind. But the closer he felt
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: to the wind, the less he felt like Marshall Mathers,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: and the more he felt like Slim.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Shady for real. He was so damn deep. Fuck it.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: If he didn't win, he would just snap, actually become
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: a murderous criminal. That's what all or nothing is, right?
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: If he left all of himself on stage, what else
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: could he be afterwards except Slim?
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Slim Shady would be all that was left. Round five,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: the final.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: He was willing to go that far now, and this
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: moment would be the test. It was clear in the
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: moment that Eminem had won the night on points. Nobody
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: had seen the likes of him before, and that had
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: to count for something. But somehow, as if to taunt
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: him with success and then snatch it away, he lost
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the final round.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Second place, the best loser.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: As the crowd milled around and filed out, Eminem curled
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: up in a corner of the room with a wet
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: cloth over his head looking like a boxer who lost
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: on a standing eight count.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: So close.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: He was lost in himself again, confronting the life ahead
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: of him, scraping by, dealing with mom, dealing with Kim.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: It was more daunting than the mic had ever been. Hey,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: you got robbed tonight, man.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: You got a tape? My name's Dan.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Eminem peeked out from under the cloth and saw some
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: dude smirking in his face.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Fuck this guy. He just wanted to be alone. He
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: offered Dan his EP anyway.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Here. And when Marshall Mathers flew back to Detroit, he
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: was convinced it had been all for nothing.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: He was a failure. Chapter closed.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: But back in LA, Dan, with his copy of the
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Slim Shady EP that Em had handed out, knew he
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: had something special. He dutifully delivered it to his boss,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Iovine, chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Interscope Records, who
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: made sure it landed on the workbench full of similar
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: mixtapes in the garage of his newest business partner and
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: former top producer at Death Row Records, Andre Young, a.k.a.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Dr. Dre.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: And there it sat, for months, waiting patiently to go off.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: John Guerrero looked into the frosty blue eyes of Kim
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Mathers as they pulled back from a kiss, only to
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: see growing panic in her face.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: Something was off.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Before he could turn around, what felt like the butt
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: of a pistol, but could just as well have been
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: a cocked fist, cracked across the side of his head.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: You fuck my wife, I'll kill you, screamed Slim Shady.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: But in Guerrero's rattled brain, the sound came from anywhere.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: You fucking lunatic, Kim screamed and launched herself at her
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: estranged husband. The gun clattered clumsily to the ground and
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: into the sight of the rest of the 2 a.m.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: crowd outside Hot Rocks, a neon-stained bar in a dance
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: hall in Warren, Michigan.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Screams erupted. Everyone scattered.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: They ran and ducked out of the parking lot, women
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: falling out of their halter tops, men ogling them, others
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: shielding them from the threat of the spinning pistol, someone
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: called the cops. But all the while, Kim and Marshall
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: just screamed past each other in passionate but impotent agony.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: John Guerrero, 6'2, a bouncer by trade, stumbled to his
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: feet with a hand to his head.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: How did this little bastard get the jump on him?
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: The sidewalk was suddenly painted in siren lights, and soon
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Kim and Marshall were in cuffs on the pavement, It
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: was only a few hours since Slim Shady had pulled
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: the same gun on Doug Dale from ICP and two
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: years since Eminem had been plucked from obscurity to record
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: with Dr. Dre. Between those two events, everything and nothing
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: had changed. The turning point came a few months after
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: his star turn at the Rap Olympics. Some say Dre
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: heard Eminem freestyle on morning radio and went hunting for
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the tape. Some say the tape had fallen behind Dre's
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: workbench and he only found it again in an act
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: of fate. However it happened, Dr. Dre heard Eminem and
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: called him. Once the pair met in the studio, it
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: was just like it had been that night in the
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: tiny bathroom of the trailer or the night at the
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Inglewood Club. All his passion was channeled effortlessly in a
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: stream of consciousness creativity. Two weeks of non-stop studio sessions
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: produced a 20-track record, custom-built to scandalize mainstream America from
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: pearl-clutching sea to shining sea. After all, Eminem was a
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: freestyle battle rapper by trade. His most finely honed skill
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: was sizing up an opponent, anticipating his vulnerabilities, and then
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: letting the rhymes flow with intuitive grace. Bobbing and weaving,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: cutting and slashing, exposing himself to abuse just so he
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: could go for the jugular.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: And with Dr.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Dre mixing his beats across the board, his most unlikely
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: dreams coming true before his eyes, who was his opponent now?
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: America itself.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: The America that had created and then abandoned him, just
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: like his deadbeat dad. Eminem's toxic Looney Tune act, Slim Shady,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: was just that, an act, but it was born from
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: a real primal scream aimed at his family, his country,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: and its straight-laced hypocrisies. The result was both high and lowbrow.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Ancient Greek Sigmund Freud meet Beavis and Butthead by way
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: of Dr. Dre in Voila, a multi-platinum album. The Slim
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Shady LP officially dropped on February 23, 1999. But by then,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: the video for the debut single had already taken over
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: MTV for a month. And what better introduction to Slim
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Shady than the single called My Name Is? And the
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Slim Shady LP would remain on the Billboard 200 chart
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: for the next 100 weeks. If Eminem chose the American
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: establishment as his last best rap battle target, the establishment
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: responded like some dumbfounded choke artist, sputtering on the mat
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: in shock like Michael Spinks on the wrong end of
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: a Mike Tyson uppercut.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: America was knocked the fuck out.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: In less than a year, Em and Dre dropped a
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: sequel album, born in another two-week studio session fueled by weed, ecstasy,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: and an already steady diet of pharmaceuticals to manage anxiety
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: and insomnia. The result was the Marshall Mathers LP, named
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: for the man's real and most vulnerable persona. The album
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: debuted in May 2000 to 1.76 million sales in its
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: first week, setting a record for fastest-selling album of all
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: time by a solo artist, a record that stood for
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: 15 years until Adele's 25 was released in 2015. Em's
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: battle rap strategy had worked better than he knew. He
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: had become the vessel through which America aired its dirty laundry.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: But the pressure of that role put Eminem in a
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: perverse position. He spoke to and for legions of ignored
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: and disaffected kids, which tapped into a seismic force in
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: pop culture, which attracted the kind of unhinged fans portrayed
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: in his iconic track, Stan. For all that had changed,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: the money, the new house, so much of the passion
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: and pain behind Slim Shady's creation.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Remained the same or got worse.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Strangers broke into his house, extended family came out of
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: the woodwork looking for money. When you use your whole
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: life as a launch pad to the stars, you can't
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: go home to scorched earth. Slim Shady's portrayal of his
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: mom as crazy, neglectful, and abusive had provoked a defamation
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: lawsuit from his own mother. And though he and Kim
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: had gotten married in the rush of increasing fame, their
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: relationship was as twisted and tortured as ever. It hadn't
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: helped that on the Slim Shady LP track, Bonnie and
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Clyde 97, Slim Shady took infant Haley on a beach
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: trip to dispose of Kim's body. while explaining the situation
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: to Hailey in Baby Talk. And things were looking even
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: worse after the prequel song, Kim, off the new album,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: depicted Slim strangling Kim to death with lyrics like, Unsurprisingly,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Kim was considering a divorce.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Too famous to.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Go out in public, paranoid that everyone viewed him as
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Slim Shady, it was only a matter of time before
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Marshall lost control and Slim escaped into the world for real.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: The judge stopped reading the letters and set the stack aside.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: It had been another year, another album in development, talk
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: of a movie about his life. But behind the scenes,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: more family drama, all these gun charges, the threat of jail.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: He felt like he was back at the diner getting
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: fired again. Just a schmuck watching all he'd accomplished fall
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: back to nothing, powerless. But when the judge let him
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: off lightly and only gave him probation and community service,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: a calm fell over him. He was respectful of her
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: stern tone. His only comment to the media gaggle on
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: his way out was that the judge and the court
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: treated me like any other human being, which really was
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: all that Eminem ever wanted. The real danger of Slim
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Shady was that he was a gory public dissection of
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Marshall Mathers performed by Eminem. All the pent-up rage of
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: a life spent scraping by in the gutter. All those
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: times he'd been ignored or written off before he'd ever
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: opened his mouth. Every dehumanizing memory, freshly dug up and
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: spewed back at all his enemies with a twisted joke
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: and a smile. But now, he had looked down the
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: barrel of the gun and had a moment of clarity.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Unleashing Slim Shady had brought him all the success he'd
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: ever imagined, but he could never lose himself in the
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: role of America's scapegoat again. He didn't need a straw
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: man to battle anymore, because battling himself would be more
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: than enough work. Marshall Mathers, underneath it all, knew any
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: other alternative would lead to disgrace.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: found on the show notes page If you're listening as
• 33:38
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• 33:41
  Speaker 2: We really appreciate it.
• 33:43
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• 33:45
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• 33:50
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• 34:08
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• 34:11
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• 34:17
  Speaker 2: Rock-a-rola.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: He's a bad, bad man. All right, thanks for checking
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: out this episode on Eminem in Disgraceland. Hit us up, guys. 617-906-6638.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Voicemail and text at DisgracelandPod on the socials. Let us
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: know what you think of Mr.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: Marshall Mathers.