Established 1916

Search ogb.wfu.edu

 

 

 

 

 

Iverson, Eminem examples of modern-day ‘real’
Jay Cridlin
Managing Editor

> February 16, 2001

For someone who hasn’t seriously followed pro basketball since the first day a surly, overrated power forward signed the first of a slew of $87 million contracts, I was quite encouraged by the Feb. 11 NBA All-Star Game.

The image was magnificent. Allen Iverson — tats, ‘rows and triumphant defiance in tow — being handed the All-Star Game Most Valuable Player trophy by David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA and Iverson’s überdoughy archnemesis.

When Iverson hoisted that crystal trophy over his head, it was classic. Here was a guy who has had been vilified all week by Stern and his fellow suits as a symbol of everything that was wrong with professional basketball, and he came out and proved that he was the best player in the NBA.

I can’t tell you how encouraged I am by this. It’s only the most recent example of how the world is becoming increasingly tolerant of the “real.” They come few and far between, but the “real” are indeed out there, a small contingent of cult-of-personality types who seem to have no distinct barriers separating their public and private personas. Try to think of a celebrity who fits that description. It’s harder than you think.

Iverson is “real.” It’s not that he’s so hardcore, outspoken or outrageous, like so many celebrities claim to be when in the presence of a microphone. Rather, it’s that he appears to have no interest whatsoever in any of those labels.

He doesn’t attempt to match the media-savvy veneer of Kobe Bryant, the pre-packaged rawness of Latrell Sprewell or the leftfield outrageousness of Dennis Rodman; yet at the same time he doesn’t shove his street cred in the spotlight for the world to deify. He’s an unapologetic self-promotional vacuum: no braggadocio, no self-congratulatory Web site, no sugarcoated press junkets — just the self-assurance to be who he wants to be and let his immense talent speak for him.

Yep, A.I.’s MVP was the best pro-“real” moment since Jan. 3, when the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences rewarded Eminem’s stellar The Marshall Mathers LP with four Grammy nominations, including one for Album of the Year.

Unless you have been living inside a Sucrets box on Mercury since 1975, you have at least heard whispers about Eminem and the rampant homophobia and misogyny found in his lyrics. His critics are everywhere: MTV has reacted to The Marshall Mathers LP with a yearlong campaign against hate crime, while the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has labeled Eminem the poster child for problem children.

But such criticisms are frustrating. To me — and this is a diehard Radiohead devotee talking here — it’s ludicrously obvious that Eminem made the best album of 2000, and I hope Grammy voters will recognize that. The Marshall Mathers LP is a phenomenal work of art, and to see it critically recognized on such a global scale would be a huge victory for the “real.”

I’ll be honest: I resisted Eminem at first, back in early 1999. I thought he was a marginally humerous, all-too-overhyped poseur who managed to ooze onto the cover of a few rapophobic mainstream mags because of the color of his skin. When Em won a couple of Grammys last year for an album and single that were laughably subpar to those put forth by his fellow nominees, it looked like his handlers’ plan had worked: an underskilled white kid had been rewarded when black artists were turning in infinitely superior work.

But then came the summer of 2000 and The Marshall Mathers LP, an astonishing album that sent my jaw to the floor. To sit and listen to The Marshall Mathers LP is a stunning, revelatory experience. You start to recognize Eminem as a visionary, as hip-hop’s illest MC since Rakim. I saw him simply for what he is — the most relevant artist in music today, and possibly the most electric lyricist of the past decade.

The Marshall Mathers LP leaves you with no doubt that Eminem is in complete control not only of what he’s saying, but of what you’re feeling as you hear him spit fire. You listen and you realize that Eminem and producer Dr. Dre have engineered a self-contained snow globe full of irony, humor, personal pain and social commentary. Shake it up, and the water becomes fogged with the entropy of Em’s vitriolic call and the world’s knee-jerk response. But remain still long enough to let the snow settle, and you’ll see just how much creative effort is packed in there.

But if there is one thing Americans don’t like to do, it’s let things settle. Just as the corporate half of the NBA had berated Iverson in the weeks leading up to the All-Star Game, the controversy surrounding Eminem and his Grammy nominations has intensified tenfold since Jan. 3. Em’s critics have turned up the heat on the Academy, threatening everything from boycotts to riots if he won Album of the Year. Don’t think these threats have been completely lost on Grammy voters.

(ASIDE: Critics such as MTV and GLAAD have a point. The Marshall Mathers LP does contain homophobic and misogynistic lyrics. It’s almost sad to watch an artist with such a gift for songwriting resort to such immature, below-the-belt tactics. Brilliant and whip-tongued he may be, but if Eminem’s lyrics don’t evolve on future albums, it is both his loss and the world’s.)

But — and this is the part of the column in which we finally return to our original point — despite the whirlwind of controversy that has trailed Eminem like Pig Pen’s dust trail, he has not apologized for his work. In fact, if you haven’t heard by now, Eminem will actually be performing at the Grammy ceremony with Elton John, thanks to an apparent nor’easter in hell.

Some say his unapologetic behavior is reprehensible. I say it’s righteous and the epitome of “real.” For Eminem to renounce The Marshall Mathers LP as if he was just kidding would betray every ounce of creativity he employed in making a truly artistic statement. If I could create something like The Marshall Mathers LP, I sure wouldn’t apologize for it.

Eminem knows the artistic merit of what he has done, just as Allen Iverson knows that his talent on the basketball court will transcend any criticisms of his behavior off it. Neither goes out of his way to invoke the spotlight; they just know that if they do what they do best the spotlight will follow.

They’re both “real.” Iverson has already been rewarded for it. Here’s hoping the Grammys keep it real and Eminem gets his due.