Yo, don’t you ever think to yourself “how much easier would life be if 19 million motherfuckers grew to be just like me?” Yeah, instead we get this fucked up world with ignorance and racial slurs, sitting in isolation being plagued by the new virus cooked up in a Chinese lab next to where they produce iPhones and shit. Shit is fucked up. Makes me wanna kill. Better yet, It makes wanna go back in time and shove that Marshall Mathers LP tape up that fucking stereo in my white trash car. It’s 20 years of MMLP, people, let’s get it uuunnnn!!!
When I was just a little baby boy,
My momma used to tell me these crazy things
She used to tell me my daddy was an evil man,
She used to tell me he hated me
Fuuuck yeah!!!
Fucking Classic album… Oh yeah and… public fucking service announcement… You’re going to see a lot of fuck in between the lines and within the lines of every fucking sentence of this reminiscence-article, because
fuck was the first word I ever learned
up in the third grade, flippin the gym teacher the bird
So if you don’t like it, go fuck yourself! Oh, and get your kids away from the screens. On second thought, fuck it, shove their faces up that screen and maybe they will learn a thing or two about life. Yeah, that’s what they call parenting and guidance. It’s what most people avoid until their kid hits 20 years like this fucking album and then it’s too late.
Here comes a time when I need to say something reaaaallly serious about the album… Puns aside, Marshall Mathers LP is one of the cornerstones of hip-hop, it’s a classic both performance-wise and in its lyrical smacking the fuck outta you. Eminem found himself through the Slim Shady LP and then it was time to establish himself through this album. He did just that.
Not only that, I don’t know why the fuck the only thing that people saw and obsessed about was the violent, homophobic, and misogynistic approach. This album contains a strong message. Throughout every song Marshall tries to expose this world’s abomination, the weak spots of our society, and he wraps it up into a comedic brilliance of twisted rhymes, puns, similes and metaphors that treat your ear both sonically and intellectually.
I sees three little kids, up in the front row,
screamin “Go,” with their 17-year-old Uncle
I’m like, “Guidance – ain’t they got the same moms and dads
who got mad when I asked if they liked violence?”
Sometimes I feel like I was put on this Earth for people to tell me how and what the fuck is wrong with me. It used to get me really upset. But now I just say that “yeah bitches!!! I am, whatever you say I am, if I wasn’t, then why would I say I am? In the paper, the news everyday I am, radio won’t even play my jam, cause I am, whatever you say I am”. Ahahah. Makes me laugh at how they react. And it’s all thanks to this beautiful album.
I sit back with this pack of Zig Zags and this bag
Of this weed it gives me the shit needed to be
The most meanest MC on this – on this Earth
And since birth I’ve been cursed with this curse to just curse
Daaaanngg!! I remember smoking my first rolled joint to this shit. That fucking tempo he uses here is unbelievable. When I first heard it, it just blew my mind. Well I was already blown away by the weed, but hell, this blew me outt tha fucking stratosphere maaan!! Show me another MC that has it all on the same level: the voice, the flow, the punches, the edgy comedy, and the amazing storytelling. Fuck no. There is no other such MC.
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My other favorite thing about this album is that Eminem got the fucking leadsigner of the Onyx on a song. Shit, Sticky Fingaz kills it no less than Marshall Mathers himself. His gritty voice in collab with Slim Shady’s trademark angry blond enunciation makes the song a bloody massacre. Plus Sticky sometimes can give Marshall a head start when it comes to the craft of colliding rhymes together to form these kinds of masterpieces of lyricism:
Better come better than better to be a competitor
This vet is ahead of, The shit is all redder, you deader and deader
A medic instead-a the cheddars and credda
Settle vendetta one metal beretta from ghetto to ghetto
Evidence? NOPE! Never leave a shred-of
Oh and let’s not forget that this is when Marshall’s impeccable capability of slashing cringe-worthy personas of celebrities comes to a flashy start. And he does it here with style and class. Nowadays Eminem says that it was never a personal attack at people. That it was just a thing that, when your name tends to rhyme very well and you’re in the spotlight for some reason or another, then you’re number one on the list to get into Slim Shady’s rhyme book. But I don’t think this is the case here. Like, how the fuck can this be ‘not personal’?
I’m anti-Backstreet and Ricky Martin
Whose instinct’s to kill N’Sync, don’t get me started
These fuckin’ brats can’t sing and Britney’s garbage
What’s this bitch retarded? Gimme back my sixteen dollars
Right, this is not personal, this is just plain awesomanal :))
The track “Marshall Mathers” is also great in another sense. It’s titular for the album and here is where Eminem brings listeners a little bit closer to his true self, putting Slim Shady in the background. He speaks on his personal problems here and throughout the whole album as well. Maybe it’s also one of the reasons MMLP became such a success. People always like to get to know their favorite artists on a personal level. There is no ski mask covering Eminem’s face here.
Yo, take me back to when Mark Wahlberg was Marky Mark, man 😀
“Drug Ballad” is probably my favorite song off the album. This is what I was talking about. Marshall exposes every fucking dimple of our insane world and puts a fucking stamp on it. You must be blind if the only storyline you see here is drugs. Eminem spits raw on life and it’s as if he is trying to say that, judging by the way people live out their lives, you might think they’re all fucking high off drugs. Yeah, I think this song is a deliberate metaphor.
It don’t matter as long as you get where you’re going
‘Cause none of this shit’s gonna mean shit where we’re goin’
They tell you to stop, but you just sit there ignoring
Even though you wake up feeling like shit every morning
Aaagh and the classic collaboration here is, of course, “Bitch Please”. Nuff said. Fucking Dre, Snoop D O double G, XZibit and Nate. Rest in peace. You never get these kinds of gems anymore and it’s too bad. Eminem’s verse off of this track is constantly brought up as an example of impeccable lyricism. And that is for a fucking reason. It shows how Eminem can carry on a rhyme scheme across the whole verse.
I just want you all to notice me and people to see
that somewhere deep down, there’s a decent human being in me
It just can’t be found, so the reason you’ve been seeing this me
is cause this is me now, the recent dude who’s being this mean
Oh and, of course, another one of my favorites is “Under the Influence”. I’m so nostalgic about the days we had the Dirty Dozen alongside Slim Shady. Each and every one of those dudes rip it on the track here. It’s like a continuous pounding and showmanship of lyrical acrobatic stunts against a playful beat filled with suspenseful, witty, gritty, and disgusting rhymes.
I love the way that Eminem always tries to create a concept and incorporate it into his albums. Not just creating an album as a compilation of songs, but rather creating an idea or theme that joins all the tracks on the album together. Listening to his albums is like reading a book. It’s like there’s an introduction, a story with a climax and the conclusion. Here Eminem starts with a song “Kill You”, which he does throughout the whole album with multiple stabs at the heart of America, and finishes off by admitting he’s a criminal for that, if stating your own opinion is considered a crime, in the song “Criminal”.
To end all of my blabbering on a high note: you can suck my dick if you don’t like my shit, cause I was high when I wrote this, so suck my dick! Haha 😀
