Eminem
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Eminem |
Eminem performing live at the DJ Hero Party in Los Angeles. |
| Background information |
| Birth name | Marshall Bruce Mathers III |
| Also known as | Slim Shady |
| Born | October 17, 1972 (1972-10-17) (age 38) Saint Joseph, Missouri,
United States |
| Origin | Warren, Michigan,
United States |
| Genres | Hip hop |
| Occupations | Rapper, record producer, actor, songwriter |
| Years active | 1995–present |
| Labels | Mashin' Duck, Web, Interscope, Aftermath, Shady |
| Associated acts | Dr. Dre, D12, Royce da 5'9", 50 Cent, Obie Trice, Jay-Z, Drake, Lil' Wayne |
| Website | eminem.com |
Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), better known by his
stage name Eminem, is an American
rapper, record producer, and actor. Eminem quickly gained popularity in 1999 with his major-label debut album,
The Slim Shady LP, which won a
Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. The following album,
The Marshall Mathers LP, became the fastest-selling solo album in United States history. It brought Eminem increased popularity, including his own record label,
Shady Records, and brought his group project,
D12, to mainstream recognition.
The Marshall Mathers LP and his third album,
The Eminem Show, also won Grammy Awards, making Eminem the first artist to win
Best Rap Album for three consecutive LPs. He then won the award again in 2010 for his album
Relapse, giving him a total of 11 Grammys in his career. In 2003, he won the
Academy Award for Best Original Song for "
Lose Yourself" from the film,
8 Mile, in which he also played the lead. "Lose Yourself" would go on to become the longest running No. 1
hip-hop single. Eminem then went on hiatus after touring in 2005. He released his first album since 2004's
Encore, titled
Relapse, on May 15, 2009. Eminem is the best-selling artist of the decade on the US
Nielsen SoundScan, and has sold more than 80 million albums worldwide to date, making him one of the
best-selling music artists in the world. In 2010, Eminem released his seventh studio album
Recovery. It became Eminem's sixth consecutive number-one album in the US and achieved international commercial success, charting at number one in several other countries. It stayed at number-one on the US
Billboard 200 chart for five consecutive weeks.
Eminem was ranked 79th on the
VH1 100 Greatest Artists of All-Time. He was also ranked 82nd on
Rolling Stone magazine's list of the
100 Greatest Artists of All Time. He was also named the Best Rapper Alive by
Vibe magazine in 2008. Including his work with D12, Eminem has achieved nine No. 1 albums on the
Billboard Top 200, 7 solo (6 studio albums, 1 compilation) and 2 with
D12. Eminem has had 13 number one singles worldwide. In December 2009, Eminem was named the Artist of the Decade by
Billboard magazine. His albums
The Eminem Show,
The Marshall Mathers LP, and
Encore (in order) ranked as the 3rd, 7th, and 40th best-selling albums of the 2000–2009 decade by
Billboard magazine. According to Billboard, Eminem has two of his albums among the top five highest selling albums of the 2000s. In the UK, Eminem has sold over 12.5 million records.
Early life
Eminem was born Marshall Bruce Mathers III on October 17, 1972 in
Saint Joseph, Missouri, the only child of Deborah Nelson Mathers-Briggs and Marshall Bruce Mathers, Jr.
He is of
Scottish,
English,
German,
Swiss,
Polish, and possibly
Luxembourg ancestry. His father abandoned the family when he was 18 months old, and he was raised solely by his mother in poverty. By the age of 12, Mathers and his mother had moved between various cities and towns in Missouri (including Saint Joseph,
Savannah, and
Kansas City) before they settled in
Warren, Michigan, a suburb of
Detroit.
After procuring a copy of the
Beastie Boys album
Licensed to Ill as a teenager, Mathers became interested in hip hop, performing amateur raps at age 14 under the pseudonym "M&M" and joining the group called "Bassmint Productions" and released their first
EP,
Steppin' Onto The Scene. They later changed their name to "Soul Intent" and around 1995 they released their first single called "Fuckin' Backstabber" under the record label Mashin' Duck Records. Although he was enrolled at
Lincoln High School in Warren, he frequently participated in
freestyle battles at the now-defunct Osborn High School on Detroit's east side. Despite a well-documented struggle succeeding in a predominantly
African-American industry, he gained the approval of
underground hip hop audiences. After repeating the ninth grade twice due to
truancy and near-failing grades, he dropped out of high school at age 17.
In 1991, Mathers' maternal uncle, Ronald "Ronnie" Nelson, committed
suicide via shotgun wound to the head. Mathers was very close to his uncle, and was devastated at his death; today, he sports a tattoo reading "Ronnie R.I.P." on his upper left arm.
Musical career
1992–1998: Early career and Infinite
Mathers was initially signed to FBT Productions in 1992, run by brothers Jeff and Mark Bass. Mathers also held a minimum-wage job of cooking and dishwashing at the restaurant Gilbert's Lodge at
St. Clair Shores for some time.
In 1996, his debut album
Infinite, which was recorded at the Bassmint, a recording studio owned by the
Bass Brothers, was released under their independent label
Web Entertainment. Eminem recalled, "Obviously, I was young and influenced by other artists, and I got a lot of feedback saying that I sounded like
Nas and
AZ. 'Infinite' was me trying to figure out how I wanted my rap style to be, how I wanted to sound on the mic and present myself. It was a growing stage. I felt like 'Infinite' was like a demo that just got pressed up." Subjects covered in
Infinite included his struggles with raising his newborn daughter Hailie Jade Scott while on limited funds and his strong desire to get rich. Early in his career, Eminem collaborated with fellow Detroit MC
Royce da 5'9" under the stage name
Bad Meets Evil. After the release of
Infinite, Eminem's personal struggles and abuse of drugs and alcohol culminated in an unsuccessful
suicide attempt.
With the release of
The Slim Shady EP, Mathers was accused of imitating the style and subject matter of underground rapper
Cage.
Jimmy Iovine, CEO of
Interscope Records, requested a demo tape of Eminem's after Eminem placed second at the 1997
Rap Olympics. Eminem had also won Wake Up Show's Freestyle Performer Of The Year award helping him acquire a record deal. Iovine played the tape for record producer
Dr. Dre, founder of
Aftermath Entertainment. The two began recording tracks for Eminem's upcoming major-label debut
The Slim Shady LP, and Eminem made a guest performance on the album
Devil Without a Cause by
Kid Rock. Hip-hop magazine
The Source featured Eminem in its "Unsigned Hype" column in March 1998.
1998–1999: The Slim Shady LP
According to
Billboard Magazine, at this point in his life Eminem had "realized his musical ambitions were the only way to escape his unhappy life". After being signed to
Aftermath Entertainment/
Interscope Records in 1998, Eminem released his first major studio album,
The Slim Shady LP, heavily based on the production by
Dr. Dre, one year later in 1999.
Billboard praised the album as "light years ahead of the material he had been writing beforehand". It went on to be one of the most popular albums of 1999, going
triple platinum by the end of the year.
With the album's popularity came controversy surrounding many of the album's lyrics. In "'97 Bonnie and Clyde", he describes a trip with his infant daughter, disposing of his wife's body. Another song, "
Guilty Conscience", ends with his encouraging a man to murder his wife and her lover. "Guilty Conscience" marked the beginning of the friendship and musical bond that
Dr. Dre and Eminem would share. The two label-mates would later collaborate on a line of hit songs, including "
Forgot About Dre" and "What's the Difference" from Dr. Dre's album
2001, "
Bitch Please II" from
The Marshall Mathers LP, "Say What You Say" from
The Eminem Show, "
Encore/Curtains Down" from
Encore and "
Old Time's Sake" and "
Crack a Bottle" from
Relapse. Dr. Dre would go on to make at least one guest appearance on all of Eminem's studio albums under the label
Aftermath. The album has now been certified 4 times platinum by the RIAA.
2000–2001: The Marshall Mathers LP
The Marshall Mathers LP was released in May 2000. It went on to sell 1.76 million copies in its first week, breaking the records set by
Snoop Dogg's
Doggystyle as the fastest-selling hip hop album and
Britney Spears'
...Baby One More Time as the fastest-selling solo album in United States history. The first single released from the album, "
The Real Slim Shady", was a success and created some controversy by insulting celebrities and making dubious claims about them; he states, among other things, that
Christina Aguilera performed
oral sex on
Fred Durst and
Carson Daly. In his second single, "
The Way I Am", he reveals to his fans the pressures from his record company to top "
My Name Is" and sell more records. Although Eminem had parodied shock rocker
Marilyn Manson in the video "My Name Is", the artists are reportedly on good terms. They performed a remix of the song "The Way I Am" together in concert. In the third single, "
Stan" (which samples
Dido's "
Thank You"), Eminem attempts to deal with his new-found fame, taking on the persona of a deranged fan who kills himself and his pregnant girlfriend, mirroring "'97 Bonnie & Clyde" on
The Slim Shady LP. In the
music video of "Stan", Eminem was shown writing with his left hand, ending the fan debate over his dominant hand.
Q magazine named "Stan" the third-greatest rap song of all time, and the song came tenth in a similar survey conducted by Top40-Charts.com. The song has since become highly acclaimed and was ranked 290th in
Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list. In July 2000, Eminem became the first white person to be featured on the cover of
The Source magazine. This album has been certified 9x platinum by the RIAA.
Eminem performed with
Elton John at the
43rd Grammy Awards ceremony in 2001; the
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), an organization that perceived Eminem's lyrics to be
homophobic, condemned the openly
gay John's decision to perform with Eminem.
Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "It was the hug heard 'round the world. Eminem, under fire for homophobic lyrics, shared the stage with a gay icon for a performance of "Stan" that would have been memorable in any context." On February 21, the day of the ceremony, GLAAD held a protest outside the
Staples Center, the venue where the Grammy ceremony was held. Music tours that he participated in for 2001 included the
Up In Smoke Tour with rappers
Dr. Dre,
Snoop Dogg,
Xzibit, and
Ice Cube and
Family Values Tour with the band
Limp Bizkit.
2002–2003: The Eminem Show
Eminem's third major album,
The Eminem Show, was released in summer 2002 and proved to be another hit for the rapper reaching number one on the charts and selling well over 1 million copies in its first week of release. It featured the single "
Without Me", in which he makes derogatory comments about
boy bands,
Limp Bizkit,
Moby, and
Lynne Cheney, among others.
The Eminem Show has been certified 8x platinum by the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The album reflected on the impact of his rise to fame, his relationship with his wife and daughter, and his status in the hip-hop community. He also addresses the charges he faced over assaulting a
bouncer he saw kissing his wife in 2000.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of
Allmusic felt that while there was clear anger present on several tracks, this album was considerably less inflammatory than
The Marshall Mathers LP. However,
L. Brent Bozell III, who previously criticized
The Marshall Mathers LP for perceived
misogynistic lyrics in the album, noted
The Eminem Show for its extensive use of obscene language, giving Eminem the nickname "Eminef" for the
bowdlerization of
motherfucker, an obscenity prevalent in the album.
2004–2005: Encore
The
Media Research Center claims that on December 8, 2003, the
United States Secret Service admitted it was "looking into" allegations that Eminem had threatened the
President of the United States. The lyrics in question: "Fuck money/I don't rap for dead presidents/I'd rather see the president dead/It's never been said, but I set precedents ..." The song in question, "We As Americans", wound up on a bonus CD accompanying the album.
In 2004, Eminem released his fourth major album,
Encore. The album was another chart-topper, as it was driven by the single "
Just Lose It", notable for being disrespectful towards
Michael Jackson. On October 12, 2004, a week after the release of "
Just Lose It", Eminem's first single off
Encore,
Michael Jackson called into the
Los Angeles-based
Steve Harvey radio show to report his displeasure with the video, which parodies Jackson's
child molestation trial,
plastic surgery, and an incident in which Jackson's hair caught on fire while filming a
Pepsi commercial in 1984. The lyrics to "Just Lose It" refer to Jackson's legal troubles, however he does state in his song "... and that's not a stab at Michael/That's just a metaphor/I'm just psycho...." Many of Jackson's supporters and friends spoke out about the video, including
Stevie Wonder, who called the video "kicking a man while he's down" and "bullshit", and
Steve Harvey, who declared, "Eminem has lost his ghetto pass. We want the pass back." In the video, Eminem parodied
Pee Wee Herman,
MC Hammer, and "
Blond Ambition"-era
Madonna.
Regarding Jackson's protest,
"Weird Al" Yankovic, who parodied the Eminem song "Lose Yourself" on a track titled "Couch Potato" on his 2003 album
Poodle Hat, told the
Chicago Sun-Times, "Last year, Eminem forced me to halt production on the video for my "Lose Yourself" parody because he somehow thought that it would be harmful to his image or career. So the irony of this situation with Michael is not lost on me."
Black Entertainment Television was the first channel to stop airing the video. MTV, however, announced it would continue airing the video.
The Source, through its CEO
Raymond "Benzino" Scott, wanted not only the video to be pulled, but the song off the album, and a public apology to Jackson from Eminem. In 2007 Jackson and Sony bought
Famous Music LLC from
Viacom. This deal gave him the rights to songs by Eminem,
Shakira and
Beck, among others.
Despite the comedic theme of the lead single,
Encore had its fair share of serious subject matter, including the anti-war track "
Mosh". On October 25, 2004, a week before the
2004 US Presidential election, Eminem released the video for "Mosh" on the Internet. The song featured a very strong anti-
Bush message, with lyrics such as "fuck Bush" and "this
weapon of mass destruction that we call our president". The video features Eminem gathering up an army of people, including rapper
Lloyd Banks, presented as victims of the
Bush administration and leading them to the
White House. However, once the army breaks in, it is revealed that they are there to simply register to vote, and the video ends with the words "VOTE Tuesday November 2" on the screen. After Bush was re-elected, the video's ending was changed to Eminem and the protesters invading while Bush was giving a speech.
2005–2008: Musical hiatus
Eminem performing live on the Anger Management Tour in August 2005
In 2005, some industry insiders speculated that Eminem was considering ending his rapping career after six years and several multi-platinum albums. Speculation began in early 2005 about a double-disc album to be released late that year, rumored to be titled
The Funeral. The album later manifested itself as a
greatest hits album under the name
Curtain Call: The Hits in December. In July 2005, the
Detroit Free Press broke news of a potential final bow for Eminem as a solo performer, quoting members of his inside circle who said that he will begin to fully embrace the role of producer and label executive. On the same day of the release of the compilation album, Eminem denied that he was retiring on Detroit-based WKQI's "Mojo in the Morning" radio show, but implied that he would at least be taking a break as an artist, saying "I'm at a point in my life right now where I feel like I don't know where my career is going ... This is the reason that we called it 'Curtain Call', because this could be the final thing. We don't know."
In 2005, Eminem was a subject of
Bernard Goldberg's book,
100 People Who Are Screwing Up America; he ranked No. 58. Goldberg cited a 2001 column by
Bob Herbert of
The New York Times claiming, "In Eminem's world, all women are
whores and he is eager to
rape and murder them." Goldberg cited Eminem's song "No One's Iller" from
The Slim Shady EP as an example of
misogyny in his music.
In summer 2005, Eminem embarked on his first US concert run in three years, the
Anger Management 3 Tour, featuring
50 Cent,
G-Unit,
Lil' Jon,
D12,
Obie Trice,
The Alchemist, and others. In August 2005, Eminem canceled the
European leg of the tour and subsequently announced that he had entered
drug rehabilitation for treatment for a "dependency on sleep medication".
Curtain Call: The Hits was released on December 6, 2005, under Aftermath Entertainment. In its first week it sold nearly 441,000 copies in the US and was Eminem's fourth straight No. 1 album on the
Billboard Hot 200. The album has been certified 2x Platinum by the
RIAA.
2008–2009: Relapse and Relapse: Refill
In September 2007, Eminem called into New York radio station
Hot 97 during an interview with 50 Cent and said he was "in limbo" and "debating" about when and if he would release another album. He said, "I'm always working – I'm always in the studio. It feels good right now, the energy of the label. For a while, I didn't want to go back to the studio ... I went through some personal things. I'm coming out of those personal things [and] it feels good."
Eminem made an appearance on his
Sirius channel
Shade 45 in September 2008 in which he said, "Right now I'm kinda just concentrating on my own stuff, for right now and just banging out tracks and producing a lot of stuff. You know, the more I keep producing the better it seems like I get 'cause I just start knowing stuff." It was around this time that Interscope finally confirmed the existence of a new Eminem album, with Spring 2009 later being stated as the period span in which the album is due. In December 2008, he gave more details on the album, which he recently reported was being titled
Relapse. He said, "Me and Dre are back in the lab like the old days, man. Dre will end up producing the majority of the tracks on 'Relapse'. We are up to our old mischievous ways ... let's just leave it at that."
On March 5, 2009, Eminem reported in a press release that he would be releasing two new albums that year.
Relapse, the first album, was released on May 19, while "
We Made You", the first official single and its music video, were released on April 7. While
Relapse didn't manage to sell as well as Eminem's previous efforts, it was still a commercial success that received some critical acclaim, while also re-establishing his presence in the hip hop world.
Relapse was named one of the top albums of 2009.
Relapse has sold more than five million copies worldwide. During the 2009
MTV Movie Awards,
Sacha Baron Cohen descended upon the audience wearing an angel's costume and landed on top of Eminem with his buttocks facing towards Eminem's face, resulting in Eminem storming out of the awards ceremony in disgust. Three days later, Eminem stated it was a staged act that they had planned together. On October 30, Eminem performed at the
Voodoo Music Experience in
New Orleans as a headliner in his first full performance in 2009. The performance included several songs from
Relapse, as well as many of Eminem's older hits and an appearance by D12. On November 19, Eminem announced on his website that
Relapse: Refill would be released on December 21. The album was a re-release of the
Relapse album with seven bonus tracks, including "
Forever" and "Taking My Ball". In a statement he described the forthcoming CD:
| “ | I want to deliver more material for the fans this year like I originally planned ... Hopefully these tracks on The Refill will tide the fans over until we put out Relapse 2 next year ... I got back in with Dre and then a few more producers, including Just Blaze, and went in a completely different direction which made me start from scratch. The new tracks started to sound very different than the tracks I originally intended to be on Relapse 2, but I still want the other stuff to be heard. | ” |
2009–present: Recovery
Eminem, along with D12, performing in 2009.
On April 13, 2010, Eminem
tweeted, "There is no Relapse 2", to his followers. When he tweeted this, people started to believe that he was not releasing an album at all, but it simply meant that the album title would be changed to
Recovery. He confirmed this by tweeting, "RECOVERY", with a link to his website. Eminem said, "I had originally planned for
Relapse 2 to come out last year. But as I kept recording and working with new producers, the idea of a sequel to
Relapse started to make less and less sense to me, and I wanted to make a completely new album. The music on
Recovery came out very different from
Relapse, and I think it deserves its own title." His seventh studio album,
Recovery, was released on June 21. In the US,
Recovery sold 741,000 in its first week to land atop the
Billboard 200. The first single, "
Not Afraid", was released on April 29, and debuted at number one on the
Billboard Hot 100, followed by a second single, "
Love the Way You Lie," which debuted at number 2 and then rose. Despite some criticism towards its consistency,
Recovery received positive reviews from most music critics. As of September 29, 2010
(2010 -09-29)[update], the album had sold 2.7 million copies in the US.
Eminem appeared at the
2010 BET Awards, performing "
Airplanes Part II" with
B.o.B and "
Not Afraid". He also performed at the Activison E3 concert. In June 2010, Eminem and Jay-Z announced they would perform together in a pair of concerts in Detroit and New York. The event was dubbed
The Home & Home Tour. The first two concerts rapidly sold out, prompting the scheduling of an additional show at each venue.
Eminem opened the 2010
MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010, by performing "
Not Afraid" and "
Love the Way You Lie", with
Rihanna performing the chorus.
Eminem and Rihanna are said to be making a sequel to their hit single, "
Love the Way You Lie". Rihanna will be the main singer which is opposed to Eminem being the main singer in Love the Way You Lie. The song is said to be in the female
perspective.
Other ventures
Shady Records and D12
As Eminem succeeded in multi-platinum record sales, Interscope granted him his own record label. He and his manager
Paul Rosenberg created
Shady Records in late 1999. He followed this by signing his own Detroit collective
D12 and rapper
Obie Trice to the label. In 2002, Eminem signed 50 Cent through a joint venture between Shady and Dr. Dre's Aftermath label. In 2003, Eminem and Dr. Dre signed
Atlanta rapper
Stat Quo to the Shady/Aftermath roster.
DJ Green Lantern, the former
DJ for Eminem, was signed to Shady Records until a dispute related to the 50 Cent and Jadakiss feud forced him to depart from the label; he is no longer associated with Eminem.
The Alchemist is now officially Eminem's tour DJ. In 2005, Eminem signed another Atlanta rapper, Bobby Creekwater, to his label along with West Coast rapper
Cashis.
On December 5, 2006, Shady Records released compilation album,
Eminem Presents: The Re-Up. It started out as a mixtape but Eminem found that the material was better than expected and released it as a full album. It was meant to help launch the new artists under the roster, like Stat Quo, Cashis and Bobby Creekwater. Around the time of recording
Infinite, Eminem and rappers Proof and Kon Artis gathered the group of rappers now collectively in the group D12, short for "Detroit Twelve" or "Dirty Dozen", performing in the manner of the multi-man group
Wu-Tang Clan. In 2001, Eminem brought his rap group,
D12, to the popular music scene, and the group's debut album
Devil's Night came out that year. The first single released off of the album was "
Shit on You", followed by "
Purple Pills", an ode to recreational drug use. For radio and television, the censored version "Pills" was heavily rewritten to remove many of the song's references to drugs and sex and was renamed "Purple Hills". While that single was a hit, the album's second single, "
Fight Music", was not as successful.
After their debut, D12 took a three-year break from the studio, later regrouping to release their second album,
D12 World, in 2004, which featured the popular hit single release "
My Band". In April 2006, D12 member (and Eminem's childhood friend)
Deshaun "Proof" Holton was killed in a club brawl on
8 Mile Road in Detroit, Michigan, with US military veteran Keith Bender, Jr., who also died in the fray. The eruption is suspected to have been due to an argument over a game of pool. Proof was then allegedly shot by the bouncer Mario Etheridge, Bender's cousin. He was taken by private vehicle to St. John Health's Conner Creek Campus, an outpatient emergency treatment site, but pronounced dead on arrival. Eminem and former Detroit
Shady Records artist
Obie Trice spoke at the funeral. D12 member
Bizarre said that Eminem is not featured on his new album
Blue Cheese & Coney Island because "he's busy doing his thing".
Acting career
Although he had a brief cameo in the 2001 film,
The Wash, Eminem made his official
Hollywood acting debut with the semi-autobiographical
8 Mile, released in November 2002. He has said the movie is not an account of his life, but a representation of growing up in Detroit. He recorded several new songs for the soundtrack, including "
Lose Yourself", which won an Academy Award for
Best Original Song in 2003. However, the song was not performed at the ceremony, due to Eminem's absence at the ceremony. His collaborator,
Luis Resto, who co-wrote the song, accepted the award.
Eminem has participated in various voice acting roles. Some of these include the video game
50 Cent: Bulletproof, where he voices an aging corrupt police officer who speaks in
Ebonics and guest spots on the
Comedy Central television show
Crank Yankers, and a web cartoon called
The Slim Shady Show, which has since been pulled off-line and is instead sold on DVD. He will be involved in either the soundtrack or scoring. He was also in the running for the part of David Rice in 2008's film
Jumper after
Tom Sturridge was dropped just two weeks before filming. Concerns over not having a more prominent actor prompted the director,
Doug Liman, to consider other actors for the role. He eventually selected
Hayden Christensen over Eminem. He also had a cameo appearance in the 2009 movie
Funny People, in which he is involved in an argument with
Ray Romano.
It was reported on November 8, 2009, that Eminem will star in the upcoming
3D horror anthology,
Shady Talez, directed by
John Davis. A four-issue comic book series based on the film is also expected to be published sometime in 2010.
Eminem will appear alongside
Christina Aguilera on the
Entourage Season 7 finale. He will play himself.
Memoir
On October 21, 2008, Eminem released a tell-all autobiography entitled
The Way I Am, which details his struggles with poverty, drugs, fame, heartbreak and depression, along with stories about his rise to fame and commentary on past controversies. This book also contains some of the original lyric sheets from songs such as "
Stan" and "
The Real Slim Shady."
Artistry
Influences and rapping technique
Eminem has named several
MCs who influenced his
rapping style – these include
Esham,
Kool G Rap,
Masta Ace,
Big Daddy Kane,
Newcleus,
Ice-T,
Mantronix,
Melle Mel (specifically the track "
The Message"),
LL Cool J,
