Slim Shady Stands Up

They say that fame these days is all about hype. That there are no stars anymore. Or as Moby sang recently to paraphrase Andy Warhol, 'We Are All Stars'. Being halfway talented and confident and photogenic can get you a long way with the help corporate-thinking svengali figures.

That's the theory anyway. The practice is less than perfect, however. A celeb-culture chock with well managed mannequins and microwaved pop tarts (Britney, J-Lo, Timberlake, The Boys Blue...) is leaving the stage wide open for someone to step forward, gatecrash the party, steal the food and run off with the limelight.

That's exactly what Marshall Mathers/Eminem/Slim Shady has done with spectacular effect over the past month. And last night Europe crowned him as well - The US rapper had already swept the MTV Video Awards in New York this year, and now he's done the same at the Euro MTV Awards too. He picked up the gongs for best European male artist, best hip-hop artist and best album for 'The Eminem Show'.

Listening to his latest record - "...Lose yourself in the music, the moment you own it, You better never let it go, You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow, This opportunity comes once in a lifetime..." its an inspirational rap on its own. But with Dr Dre's increasingly towering music, working up a guitar sample into a magnificent crescendo its clear that the man has stepped up to genuine greatness.

It's hard to actually like the little toerag. He reminds me of the sour little arsewipes who always seem to be cheerleaders for the local school bullies. The sort who were King Shit of Turd Mountain at the age of eleven but as their victims grew up (and they didn't) they got all bitter and twisted.

I guess the movie (when we get finally to see it round here) is a vision of how a lot of these nippers with attitude can end up.

The Eminem story is fictionalised in '8 Mile' - a Presleyesque film with an art-imitates-life plotline. In many ways the character leap between Bunny Rabbit and Deke Rivers is not too far at all . Both Elvis and Eminem are bad boys who broke into the mainstream almost by force of personality. And both had that rabbit in the headlights look on their face as the full glare of public adultation bore down on them at full speed.

Mathers isn't sexy though, in spite of his baby oiled performance at the MTV Awards in New York a few months back. He's more a grown up Bart Simpson bringing a cartoon sensibility to a rap scene sorely lacking in the humour department.

The blacker side of Eminem's stuff has its roots in the caustic monologues of Lenny Bruce, the blackhearted surrealism of Bill Hicks and the chainsmoking sarcasm of Dennis Leary. This gives the man a real edge over the competition - irony isn't generally an American strongpoint, so a stateside lyricist with the ability to tell a story as chilling as 'Stan', weave into it the perils and responsibilities of fame, then leave you with a joke, is going straight to the top.

The interesting thing is what's going to happen next.

Bad boys who finally get the attention they've been craving since they learned to crawl do tend to let it get to them. The ice cool act soon melts in the heat of adulation. Look at another of these stateside loudmouths. Pink started off as a genuine firebrand with a kickass reputation. One hit single later and she's turned into a Sesame Street puppet show.

In Eminem's case he's got one of the world's finest musical minds at work behind the scenes in Andre Young, so he can concentrate on the street smart storytelling that's made him famous. Not since John Lennon and Bob Dylan have we had a populist poet of this magnitude - and he matches them both in his ability to capture the mood of his generation and bridges a musical racial divide in America like no-one since Elvis.

I just hope the kid can continue to kick against the pricks. So far his work has not suffered by the attention - if anything it seems to be giving the kid more energy and fire, which suggests that he can continue to surprise and confound for many years. The only worry is that he lets all the hero-worship role model shit get to him. If all it does is make him stronger he'll become a legend before our very eyes.

Blogga