What happens when a white artist stands out in a black musical genre? This was the case of Eminem, whose meteoric success in rap caused him to be attacked not only by the black community, but also by the white population, who tried to censor him at any cost. In response, he wrote a song exposing a very serious hypocrisy that is destroying our society, but that few people have the courage to see.
Today I'm going to reveal the story behind Eminem's White America. I'm Guilherme, and you're at DecifraHITS. [Song excerpt] “Is the color of my skin benefiting me now?
” This is a question that Eminem himself asks and answers in his song White America which, despite being released more than 20 years ago, is increasingly current. At that time, when he reached the peak of his career, Eminem became the target of attacks and cancellations from the black community, mainly due to the prominent place he began to occupy in hip-hop, a black cultural movement. Rapping and he's white.
German right? But he's white. He's white!
Anyone who watched our video about Cleanin' Out My Closet knows that Eminem, despite being born white and with light eyes, had a very difficult childhood, like many black rappers of his time. In addition to living in a trailer in Detroit, one of the most violent cities in the country, his father abandoned him when he was still a baby. This meant that Eminem was raised solely by his mother Debbie, who was not only a narcissist, but also addicted to prescription drugs, and even drugged him by putting these drugs in his food.
Debbie lived on government assistance and didn't pay her rent, moving from house to house whenever they were evicted. Eventually they settled in a predominantly black neighborhood of Detroit, where Eminem had difficulty socializing, was bullied at school due to his color, and was even labeled as mentally disabled by some teachers. He ended up dropping out of school after repeating the ninth grade 3 times, but the reason for the repetitions was never a lack of intelligence, but because he started missing classes after finding another activity that brought him much more pleasure and fulfillment: rap battles.
At that time, the only white rapper who had reached the top of the charts was Vanilla Ice, the same guy from the hit song Ice Ice Baby. [Song excerpt] But Vanilla Ice's sound was very pop, far from the seriousness and authority that gangsta rap brought, which was what was trending at the time. And the worst thing is that, to try to fit in with the black crowd, Vanilla Ice invented a lot of stories saying that he had grown up in the ghetto, and so on.
And then when they discovered it was all a lie, things got ugly for him. In other words, the biggest white representative of rap was seen as a true comedian, especially among hip hop fans. If you don't know, this hip hop thing is going to support me.
Tomorrow I will win the rap battle. Rap battle? !
Oh for God's sake. . .
You hate me because I'm black! So it was this caricatured stereotype that everyone expected from a white rapper at the time, you know? And that wouldn't help Eminem to be well received in rap battles.
For those who don't know, these battles are a very good way for you to show your talent in rhyming, and end up being recognized by a manager, so much so that many successful rappers started out like this. But precisely because he was white, Eminem was very afraid of going on stage to rhyme in front of the crowd. One fine day he decided to try his luck, and even with his hands cold with sweat, his throat dry, and his stomach churning with anxiety, he went on stage.
Before he even opened his mouth, the crowd booed him so much that he thought about leaving and never coming back. But he didn't give up and, as soon as he started rhyming, everyone shut up and was shocked by the guy's rhyming skills. In other words, it was obviously not a question of talent, he had that in spades.
The reality is that people didn't identify with him. And boy, does it make a big difference. To give you an idea, until the eighth grade (9th year) I was very embarrassed when the other kids at my school made fun of me because of my color, made fun of black people, those kid things.
But it was precisely in the eighth grade that I had my first contact with hip hop, in 2005, when a colleague took a discman with the 50 Cent CD and showed me this: [Song excerpt] My brother. . .
I remember I got home and listened to it all day, and since that day I haven't stopped. After that, I started to be inspired by 50 Cent, I stopped feeling ashamed and started to feel proud of my color. And from high school onwards I was the one who made jokes and made fun of being black.
All this because I identified with the guy. So it's logical that people would have difficulty accepting a white guy wanting to be part of hip hop, a movement created by black people and that represents black culture. So, it's a situation that for many people is still difficult to swallow, but even 50 Cent himself said it perfectly in this interview here: Hip-hop is black music whithout question and.
. . Unfortunately for some people is tough to accept you got a white artist that does it better than black artists.
It is what it is. . .
Many people's fear is that Eminem would do some kind of cultural appropriation and steal the entire history of hip hop for white people. And you can understand, if you take what happened with Rock n' Roll for example. Few people today know that Chuck Berry was one of the pioneers of the genre, much less that Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who was a gospel singer, was the first person to use an electric guitar to create the sound we know today as Rock n' Roll.
But the person who won the title of king of rock was Elvis Presley, who undoubtedly had a lot of talent, but at a time when racial segregation was very strong, he had much more spotlight and publicity in the media because he was white and ended up taking all the credit for himself. This same story was repeated over the years with other artists and bands, and this made Rock n' Roll an increasingly white musical genre. So that was the people's fear.
But the difference is that while for Elvis, his entry into the world of music was made easier because he was white, in the case of Eminem, his color did exactly the opposite job, it made his entry into hip-hop so difficult that he almost He gave up his career, if it weren't for one detail that would change this whole game. [Song excerpt] “When I was unknown, no one gave a shit if I was white. No label wanted to sign me, I almost gave up.
Until I met Dr Dr, and he was the only one to look beyond that. He gave me a chance, and I made him take off and get back to the top. ” After Dr Dr signed Eminem and started producing his music, the tables turned completely.
Dr Dr is one of the most respected names in hip hop, so having him sponsor Eminem was almost a pass, a seal, so that many black people who were still reluctant because Eminem was white, would start to give a chance for him. A classic example is the rapper Ice Blue, from Racionais MC's, who has already spoken openly about this. May I ask you.
. . Did you not like Eminem because he was white?
White people can't rap? There is this. .
. I can't deny. .
. It already came with this prejudice. .
. But it was already endorsed by Dr Dr. .
. So. .
. (There's something) Let's respect But Eminem still needed to break that white rapper stereotype that Vanilla Ice had created. He needed something besides his talent to attract the attention of teenagers.
It was there that he developed his alter-ego Slim Shady, a character he incorporated to write lyrics with extremely crazy, violent and aggressive stories. This entire formula led to Eminem having one of the most meteoric rises in the history of music, breaking sales records for each album released, and receiving the biggest award possible in the music industry several times: the Grammy. Not even Eminem himself believed that he would become so successful, as he himself sang in White America: [Song excerpt] “Who would have thought that me, standing in front of the mirror, pouring hydrogen peroxide on my hair, wearing a t-shirt, would be released into cutting edge of rap like that?
” Few people noticed the care he took in this line not to use the word hip hop, which is a cultural movement, and instead he said “rap” which is the musical genre belonging to this movement. Throughout the song, Eminem shows that he respects and perfectly understands the movement he is part of, but at the same time, he also recognizes the impact that his color has on selling records. [Song excerpt] “Let’s do the math, if I were black, I would have sold half as much.
” Which is again a question of identification. If a fan identifies in some way with the artist, even if it's just because they have the same skin color, there's a greater chance they'll support him and buy his music. albums.
And since the majority of the entertainment consumer market in the United States is white, they are where the biggest money flow is, and this represents a much greater potential for selling albums. There were certainly many black people in the underground who had as much talent and even more than Eminem, but who were never known because they weren't found by Dr Dr, or because they didn't have the standard of appearance of the white, blond guy who was sold on New Year 's Eve. of the millennium.
Another thing that helped boost Eminem was MTV, which was the one that was most invested in promoting this appearance standard at the time. Congratulations! Your album is at number two on the charts.
Thank you,. Thank you. With a little help from MTV.
On American MTV, there was a program called TRL (Total Request Live), which Eminem also mentions in White America. [Song excerpt] “I arrive at TRL, and look how many hugs I get! ” TRL was completely focused on the teenage female audience, so it mainly promoted the boy bands and girl bands of the time.
He made a top 10 of the best clips. And in this basket ended up some artists who weren't necessarily pop, but who had a more attractive appearance for this audience of teenage girls, like Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit and Eminem himself. If Eminem's color bothered him so much at the beginning of his career, now it seemed to be doing the opposite job.
[Song excerpt] “Is my skin starting to work for me now? ” Yes, it was. But soon after, the color of his skin would bring new problems again.
Many of the teenagers who watched TRL religiously were daughters of politicians and very powerful people in the American government, and that was when things started to get ugly for Eminem again. On July 20, 2001, a hearing took place in the United States Congress to discuss the limits of the entertainment industry. Congress was furious that Eminem had been awarded a Grammy, and a congresswoman named Barbara Lynn Cubin had this to say: “When you hear lyrics about stu***ing or killing your mother, the music industry should be embarrassed that this is worthy of an award.
” The congresswoman confronted the RIAA, which is the organization that represents and regulates the American music industry, and proposed that they increase control and censorship of the music that was being produced. Eminem knew that this attempt at censorship was based on the fear that his music would influence children and teenagers, and that this fear came from a majority of white, upper-middle class people who had never heard of hip hop in their lives, until their children listened to Eminem at home. In response, he wrote the song White America, exposing all the hypocrisy and ignorance of the American population.
The song begins with a patriotic exaltation of the United States, but in a very sarcastic tone, typical of Eminem: [Song excerpt] “How many people are proud to be citizens of this beautiful country of ours, of stripes and stars? Of the rights that men died to protect? For the freedom of speech that the United States government swore to defend.
. . or so they tell us.
” This introduction and the clip full of planes and helicopters have everything to do with the moment the country was going through at the time. That infamous September episode had just happened, the USA was at the height of the war against terrorism, patriotism was on the rise, and the government used the argument of defending freedom to encourage young people to go to war. Eminem thought it was absurd for the government to be waving this flag of freedom of expression when, at the same time, it was trying to censor artists like him, and many others like System Of A Down themselves, who have already gone through such censorship and that we have already told the story here.
The title itself makes it very clear who Eminem's target is in this song: the white America, making reference to white families in the American suburbs, especially the fathers and mothers who despaired when their children started listening to the dark skinny guy's songs. During the song, he creates two characters: “Eric” and “Erica”, to represent all these teenagers who are his fans, and who would theoretically be capable of committing absurd crimes because they are influenced by Eminem's lyrics. In fact, the name “Eric” itself is also a way of responding to the various accusations that Eminem's songs had influenced that terrible crime that took place at Columbine school, since one of the shooters was called Eric.
It was the same crooked talk that was on the rise at the turn of the millennium, that video games influenced teenagers to commit crimes, and rap was always part of that mix. To defend themselves, artists always made an analogy with films: if that's the case, why weren't horror film directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King also censored? Their films also have a lot of blood and violence, don't they?
But the reality that no one could see is that it wasn't the violence and controversial lyrics in Eminem's lyrics that made teenagers become fans. The hole was much lower, and Eminem himself explained it very well in White America: [Song excerpt] “See, the problem is that I speak directly to middle-class young people who, otherwise, would never have known my words. Whose mothers would probably never have given a shit until I created such turmoil, coming straight from the TV into their living rooms.
The kids went crazy when they found out I was produced by Dr Dr. And they also connected with me because I looked like them. That was all it took, and they were instantly hooked.
” Young white middle-class people identified with Eminem. And as the effects of racial segregation were, and unfortunately still are, much stronger in the United States, many of these young people could feel wrong or out of place listening to a black artist, but when a white artist arrived at the height of rap, it became much easier for them to them to have contact with this musical genre. Just pay attention to this view of the MV Bill: Personally, I think Eminem is one of the greatest rhymers in the world.
(I think so too) I think he's very good. He ended up, just like Gabriel Pensador in Brazil, he ended up taking rap to an audience that sometimes didn't have access, didn't like it as much. .
. And it ended up through Eminem enjoying other groups. And through Gabriel Pensador here in Brazil, he discovered rap and then went looking for other names as well.
And it's like that, it starts with Eminem, soon the Tupac poster will be plastered in the room, and then the parents will feel the black drama. But beyond this issue of identification, there is also another problem of hypocrisy and structural racism that Eminem exposes in the third verse of the song: “Certainly hip-hop was never a problem in Harlem, only in Boston, after it bothered the parents of girls going through puberty” Like, you only have problems with hip-hop now because your kids are listening to it, right? Because while rap was, in quotation marks, “just a black music”, and was only played in black neighborhoods like Harlem in New York, you didn't give a damn about what rap represented, and what message it was being past.
But after rap arrived in mostly white cities like Boston, did hip-hop suddenly become a problem? Remembering that this effect has been happening since well before Eminem. Just remember the chaos that happened in politics after the NWA popularized gangsta rap, and the entire government wanted to censor the guys.
And it's funny how here Eminem talks about girls going through puberty, because here comes another detail that I was already forgetting: if for boys, Eminem generated identification, for many girls, the guy was simply the first platonic love of their adolescence. And the desgramado knew this very well, because that's how he begins the second verse: [Song excerpt] “Look at my blue eyes, baby, light blue, just like yours. If they were brown, Shady would lose, he would be left on the shelf.
But Shady is cute, he knew his dimples would help. They would make the girls sigh. Oh baby, look how much I’m selling!
” Anyone who knows teenagers knows that this is often a phase of subversion, they want to do everything the wrong way, it even seems like it's to irritate their parents on purpose. In the case of girls, It's also the crush phase, they will start to desire the perfect man. While hip hop only had black artists, these little girls might like it but, again, because of structural racism, most of them wouldn't want to put a poster of a rapper in their room, and would at most listen to one or two hidden songs.
. Sweetheart. .
. There's no one nearby. Yeah!
[Excerpt from rap music] But from the moment Eminem arrived on the scene, the game completely changed. "OK. Eminem is a cute, blonde guy with blue eyes, who all my friends like and approve of.
There's just one problem: he sings this hip-hop song, which I've never heard of. . .
But wait. . .
Does that mean his music has a lot of swear words, and hearing that really irritates my parents? Ah, so this is the perfect combo! ” Unlike the pop artists that appeared in the living rooms of white American parents, always politically correct and cute, Eminem was totally subversive, just the way the kids liked it.
He didn't care, he cursed everyone, he used bad words, and he was loved by all the teenagers. Whom “White America” called a “bad example” had now become the inspiration of her children. Eminem ends the song mocking this situation and throwing it in the face of “White America”, as a way of exposing this entire circus of hypocrisy from a part of society that never cared about hip-hop while there were only black artists, but remained in shock when, through a white artist, his children finally discovered rap.
Now, have you noticed a deal? Eminem is a guy who achieved the feat of being hated by both blacks and whites. For black people, for cultural appropriation.
Which I honestly don't think he ever did. Yes, hip-hop is a black cultural movement, but that doesn't stop a white person from also defending and propagating this movement. If Eminem was a guy with no talent or who only became famous because he was white, that's one thing, but it's undeniable that he's one of the most talented rappers in history.
It wasn't just color, but talent that helped him at the beginning of his career. So much so that Dr Dr even said that when he heard Eminem's demo tape, he didn't even know he was white, he just knew that the guy was really good and that he wanted to work with him. Dr Dr was still heavily criticized at first by other black producers, but he persisted because he knew that Eminem was different.
However, in “White America”, as in many other songs, Eminem does exactly the opposite of victimizing himself for “reverse racism”, he shows respect for black culture and recognizes the privilege he had due to the color of his skin. The problem here in “White America” is not even with prejudice, but with the hypocrisy of the average American, precisely white people, who simply cannot accept that young people like them so much. Okay, he may have some pretty heavy lyrics with homophobia, misogyny and violence.
But like I said, this is a character he played. He needed the character to attract attention, but what really made people identify was never the character, but rather the human side of Eminem. Anyone who follows the guy knows that he worked hard in life, he's humble as hell with his fans, he's an example of a father, and that's exactly what connects with people.
The reality is that everyone should have someone to look up to or follow. If the greatest geniuses and leaders in history had someone to look up to, why wouldn't you? I'm tired of seeing people commenting on our videos, saying that this song helped them deal with a loss in the family, or deal with depression.
. . man, look at the power that music has.
So if a certain artist's music makes your day better, or motivates you in some way, go for it. This can make a huge difference in your life. It was precisely the desire to analyze a song by my idol, 50 Cent, that encouraged me to create this channel, and it changed my life forever.
People don't like Eminem because they don't identify with him, and that's okay! Everyone will have their favorite artist, their idol. The important thing is that, if you have someone who inspires you, follow them, Listen to what she has to say, she may be the way out of the most difficult moment of your life.
But there's one detail: don't be stupid and know how to separate the character from the real person. Just imagine if you decided to be inspired by the crazy Slim Shady? You could become obsessed like Stan and end up committing a terrible crime just to get your idol's attention.
This type of obsessive fan is so dangerous that one of them even put Eminem's life at risk not long ago. We already told this whole story in this video here. Click here and we'll wait for you there.
