Ever since Grammys were first awarded to music stars 43 years ago, the prize and the organization that oversees it have been ridiculed for favoring the bland and safe over the edgy and controversial. Last week, the ridicule stopped.
Instead, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences has been swamped with criticism from gay-rights groups and livid parents. The reason: NARAS has nominated Eminem, a Detroit rapper known for both darkly comic wordplay and homicidal, gay-bashing lyrics, to several of its highest honors, including album of the year.
The news lit up phone lines and overwhelmed the e-mail system at the organization’s Los Angeles office, with nearly everyone furious that the academy had put its imprimatur on an artist who seems to revel in homophobia and misogyny. “The calls and e-mail number in the thousands,” said NARSA President Michael Greene. “Our Web master came up in the morning and said, `What the hell am I supposed to do?”‘
For Eminem, the possibility of protests at the Feb. 21 awards ceremony promises an enormous windfall of publicity. The Grammy-nominated Eminem album, “The Marshall Mathers LP,” which managed to both awe and repulse critics at the same time, has already sold 8 million copies, making it the second-best-selling album of 2000, right behind “No Strings Attached” by pop singers ‘N Sync.
Controversy at the Grammys would in some ways also benefit NARAS. The trade group could finally shed its image as a cautious institution besotted by tepid, middle-of-the-road music. To say that honoring “The Marshall Mathers LP” is a departure for the organization doesn’t quite capture it; this marks the first time that an obscenity-spouting, knife-happy rapper has been nominated in a high-profile category — album of the year — rather than a niche category. (In 1993, a notable low point, the best-album prize went to the soundtrack to the movie “The Bodyguard,” edging out Billy Joel’s “River of Dreams.”)
Grammy voters, of course, are familiar with Eminem’s almost cartoonish lyrical venom, but after rancorous, occasionally tear-filled debate, a nominating committee decided that it could honor the recording without honoring its message. According to Greene, Eminem is squarely in the tradition of comedian Lenny Bruce, another groundbreaking performer whom plenty of people found offensive.
“There’s no question about the repugnancy of many of his songs,” said Greene. “They’re nauseating in terms of how we as a culture like to view human progress. But it’s a remarkable recording and the dialogue that it’s already started is a good one.”
But gay-rights groups argued that the bold step by NARAS will come at a steep price. “We’d give it the `worst album of the year’ award, with some of the most defamatory lyrics we’ve seen in a long time,” said Joan Garry, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “It gives kids permission to use the word `fag’ in a locker room, on a playground, in their neighborhood, and that’s where prejudice begins.”
Officials at Interscope records, Eminem’s label, declined to comment.
The anti-gay lyrics on “Marshall Mathers” are often brutal. On the song “Kill You,” for instance, Eminem delivers the following verse: “You faggots keep eggin’ me on / Till I have you at knifepoint, then you beg me to stop? / Shut Up! Give me your hands and feet I said Shut Up when I’m talkin’ to you You Hear Me? Answer Me! / Or I’ma kill you!” And on the song “Criminal” there’s this: “My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge / That’ll stab you in the head whether you’re a fag or lez / Or the homosex, hermaph or a trans-a-vest / Pants or dress / Hate fags? The answer’s `yes.”‘
Throughout the album, Eminem is an equal-opportunity offender. He imagines himself beating women and raps about raping his mother.
All of this could be dismissed as nothing more than the musings of a sociopath or a bigot, except that Eminem is undeniably superb at his job — especially if his job is defined as making millions by provoking people with nasty, quasi-humorous rhymes and ticking beats. “God sent me to (expletive) the world off,” he rapped on “My Name Is,” and by that standard, he’s been a resounding success.
Born Marshall Mathers — the initials that make up his stage name — and nicknamed Slim Shady, the 26-year-old Eminem is a protege of Dr. Dre, a titan of the hip-hop world who himself won five Grammy nominations last Wednesday, including one for producer of the year. Eminem’s ties to Dre and other African-American artists have helped make him one of the few white rappers to remain salable in a field that scorns pretenders to street authenticity.
As remarkably, he has won critical raves — “Marshall Mathers” showed up on dozens of top-10 lists in 2000 — even as he caught on with white teenage suburbanites, still among rap’s largest markets. He’s venerated by both neophytes and musical know-it-alls.
As a rhymer, Eminem’s specialty is intricate, tightly packed verse; imagine a hip-hop version of Ogden Nash in a foul mood, with a chip on his shoulder and a machete in his hand. His words are filled with both defiance and self-pity. He typically casts himself as the brooding loony who’s ready to pop. His message could be boiled down to “I don’t like you, so leave me alone,” a sentiment as universal among teenagers as acne.
