Jane Buckwalter, L.C.S.W.

A few years ago, I had reason to research the early history of the popular rap artist Eminem, when I was asked to write, from a therapist's point of view, about his lyrics for XXL Magazine, which was doing a special edition about him.  Eminem might be of interest to the readers of this Newsletter partly as a study of childhood pathology in relation to modern music. Ultimately this article was not published as the publisher feared a lawsuit. Here is the article, slightly updated.   Jane B 

With in-your-face language, five of Eminem’s early poems describe the impulses that stem from a childhood of neglect, violence and over-stimulation. These intense, vehement, and yet quite witty lyrics portray the effects of such a childhood on an adult mind in a way in which the listener can relate, if he/she is not repelled by the explicit language.  The poems are from these five songs: “Stir Crazy” from The Madd Rapper’s Tell ‘Em Why U Madd, “Busta Rhyme” from Missy Elliott’s Da Real World, “I’m Shady” from Eminem’s The Slim Shady LP, “If I get Locked Up Tonight” from Funkmaster Flex’s The Tunnel, and “I Am” from Marshall Mathers LP.

Eminem’s feelings are not based on current causes, as we see in “Stir Crazy:”

I got a beautiful wife, kids and a gorgeous home...

I’m still mad at the world, even if it apologized to me

Without knowing anything about the growing-up years of Eminem, it would not be possible to understand the thoughts of this talented, popular and very successful young man. His suicidal thoughts repeatedly break-through his images, shocking the listener as a small child can be shocked by the sudden intrusion of something terrifying:

What would make me jump in the tub with a cordless phone?

In “I’m Shady,” the commonplace is again followed by a shock and we get a glimpse at some old thoughts that plague him:

I like happy things, I’m really calm and peaceful...

I like funny things that make me happy and gleeful...

Like when my teacher sucked my wee-wee in preschool (Woo!)

The ill type, I stab myself with a steel spike

While I blow my brain out...

In this song, the listener is invited to experience the confusing over-stimulation of a small child, followed by the  self-directed  aggression  of   the  grown   man  who carries the burden of blame and his self-directed aggression appears in suicidal thoughts as well.

In “Busta Rhyme,” we find Eminem to be:

suicidal with no friend...

Jumped out of the 93^rd floor of a building.

The writer’s loneliness and vulnerability is buried by thoughts of violence both toward himself and others.  Eminem was the victim of inconsistent parenting and erratic responsiveness and his feeling abused leads to the wish to be the abuser, a defense we call “identification with the aggressor.”  We can see this in “If I Get Locked up Tonight:”

Hell yea I punch my bitch and beat my kids in public

To the outside world of music critics or parents of teenaged Eminem fans, what appears as security or arrogance does not quiet Em’s inner, crazy-making rage.  From “If I get Locked up Tonight:”

I hate the straight jacket it aint latching, and can’t lock it

So they stapled my hand to my pants

The cell’s padded and battered.

In the midst of his inner turmoil, Eminem casts about for someone to blame.  Typically, the troubled young man’s pain and rage remain mixed with images of those he loves, so those are the ones he imagines killing.  Often this means women, because it was his mother who was at least around to raise him, however inadequately. Eminem displays this tendency in “Stir Crazy:”

I’m straight vicious. I hit you with plates and dishes

Leave you eight stitches...

Slut don’t be nice to me, I’ve had it with girls...

You’re hearing the last words of a man about to blow his fuckin’ brains out

Fall back with a blood stained blouse on top of his spouse

Spread out on a blood stained couch.

In America’s ghettoes and trailer parks, or wherever women wield most of the domestic power, men often become emasculated in the eyes of young boys, whose own powerlessness leaves their gender identity in question.  We can see this issue expressed in “Stir Crazy:’

I’m sicker than Boy George picturin’ Michael Jackson

In little boys’ drawers shoppin’ at toys stores.

Or, in “If I get Locked Up Tonight:” 

You faggots ain’t tough...

For Eminem, all of this psychic stress leads him to seek drugs as his only relief.  From “I’m Shady:”

I got mushrooms, I got acid,  I got tabs and aspirin tablets.

Or, from “If I get Locked Up Tonight”:

I’m dedicated to medication

But this med is taking too long to bring me this sedation

After Eminem achieved stunning international popularity, he was puzzled by this response. Yet as he rapped of violence, he became ever more popular and he even became a role model.

He says in  “If I Get Locked Up Tonight:”

Became a role model after Colorado

Now all they do is follow me around and holla Bravo!

Yet his confusion is reflected in “I’m Shady:”

I try to keep it positive and play it cool

Shoot up the playground and tell the kids to stay in school (Stay in school)

Cause I’m the one they can relate to and look up to better

Tonight I think I’ll write my biggest fan a fuck you letter.

One would wonder why he would need to spoil the good feelings that his fans have toward him, yet knowing that he has had little experience of positive relationships helps us understand something of what might make him tick.

While these first four poems portray Eminem as a man on the edge, “about to blow his fucking brains out” (Stir Crazy), he hasn’t done it yet.  Instead, he chooses to shout to the world about his pain.  Marshall Mathers, the writer, clearly understands the inner life of Eminem, his  alter  ego.    It   seems   reasonable   to  guess   that Mathers has experienced the feelings expressed in Em’s lyrics, but his rapping is what has saved him from acting on them, by creating distance between him and those disturbing feelings.  In therapy, kids play out violent themes and this is a way of preventing them from acting them out in real life.  By pouring his pain into his lyrics, using them to express and contain his pain, Mathers is making art, not war.  Whether this art is sufficient to keep his rage from erupting into action remains to be seen over time.  And why it attracts 12-year-old girls is another important question.

The fifth poem under discussion, which comes from Eminen’s most recent album, is less explicitly violent, but opens us up to his inner soul.  In “I Am,” Em says:

I’m so sick and tired of being admired.

Generally, a boy’s first “audience” is his mother, and burden of blame and his self-directed aggression appears in suicidal thoughts as well.  One of her jobs is to recognize and give words to the boy’s feelings.  When that process is derailed, for example, by  the child needing to enliven and entertain a depressed mother, the child’s sense of who he is becomes distorted.  Perhaps, for Em, it does not feel like admiration for who he is but for an image that he feels was created by and for others: fans, producers, even commentators such as this one.  He obviously failed to get the feedback of admiration that he greatly needed and he feels enslaved by the continued expectation:

To top what ‘my name is

Although he expresses the wish to

Get fired and dropped from my label,

it is because he feels misunderstood,

pigeoned holed

by  

cocky caucasians who think I’m some wigger who just tries to be black cause I talk with an accent and grab on my balls.

But ultimately Eminem needs his audience, just as the small child needs his parent, no matter what the cost. Em seems to surrender and he gives up his true self or soul when he says

I am whatever you say.

“I Am” has come to mean “I no longer am.”

In the end we can only hope that although this is Em speaking, that the young artist has found a way to achieve an even keel in his private life despite living in the glare of hip-hop stardom.

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