Happy birthday Eminem, rock icon
Over the last thirty years, Marshall Bruce Mathers III – Eminem for his friends – has been defined in a thousand ways: genius, provocateur, urban poet, symbol of the white current of hip hop. Among the many interpretations with which to interpret his repertoire, one could be added: Eminem is a rock rapper.
Rock is not just a matter of electric guitar and pounding drums – elements which Eminem has used on more than one occasion. Like rap, rock is also a communicative code, an attitude: it is rebellion, energy, vulnerability and constant tension towards breaking patterns and rules. Like the great rock icons, the rapper has built a character who challenges social hypocrisy and who talks about personal discomfort in a raw way, without filters or mincing words. Since the days of “The Slim Shady LP”, that is, since 1999, his figure has been that of an antihero: self-destructive, angry, uncomfortable. Just like the best rockers of the 70s or 90s. Eminem embodies the cry of those who find no space in the systemtransforming anger into art. Not that this is an exclusively rock prerogative, on the contrary: this is the crux of the matter. Rap and rock, two genres – two worlds – apparently so distant, are actually profoundly close. Eminem has the merit of reminding us that the more we try to put limits on music, to label it, cage it or confine it, the more it surprises us by going beyond every limit. And that’s how it is too in the purest expression of rap similarities with rock can be seen.
The comparison sometimes holds up even on a sound level. “Lose yourself”, “Till I collapse” or “Cinderella man” evoke the tension of alternative rock, and have a structure that resembles a piece of that genre more than a classic hip hop beat. The productions – often curated by Dr. Dre and Eminem himself – alternate guitar riffs, aggressive drums and a dynamic use of pauses and sound explosions reminiscent of the more melodic Nirvana or Metallica. His voice is perfect for rapping, of course, but if it were to lend itself to a rock song, it probably wouldn’t look out of place. His live shows are pure catharsis. Let’s not bother Freddie Mercury or Mick Jagger, we are still talking about a completely different universe, but the magnetism that the Rap God he exercises on his audience, yes, it is very similar.
His career is a long one autobiography in versea concept (that of exposing one’s fragility) closer to auteur rock than to more commercial rap. “The Marshall Mathers LP 2” and “Revival” are two records that demonstrate his constant desire to reinvent himself, even at the cost of dividing audiences and critics. His voracity, there rebellion as a language. Not only against power or the media, but against himself, fame, addiction, American society which, against his will, put him on a pedestal and made him a target. The genealogy of his work and that of rock have very similar roots: the urgency of transmitting individual discomfort to the world, of transforming personal fracture into collective language. Trauma becomes spectacleconfession is hybridized with satire and vulnerability is sublimated into verbal aggression: this is why we can consider Slim Shady’s alter ego as an incarnation of the rock paradigm in the postmodern era. It’s not just provocation: it’s the dramaturgy of alienation.
In a century, the twenty-first, in which rock has lost its symbolic primacy, Eminem inherits its imagery. Not as a genre but as an idea, as a vocation, as an emotional drive. It may be because of this affinity that he has always gotten along well with rock artists, with his crazy performances Steven Tyler to the 2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame cameo by Marilyn Manson in “The way I am”. Without forcing or contrasts, because the language is the same: music as a means of survival, protest and provocation. So today, in his honor, we too launch a provocation: Eminem is not a rapper who flirted with rock. “He’s a rocker who chose rap”.
