Come-wack Kid

So, everybody’s favourite pill-addled, mom-hating, wife-beating, millionaire lunatic is back in the booth and it’s a sad, sad song, my friends. It seems a lifetime away but it was only 10 years ago when every kid in my grade (don’t forget, I’m ’86) wanted to peroxide their hair and wear a Jason mask to school. Eminem was the man! For white kids who would take shit for being into hip hop, here was a guy that came into the game and turned into the pound-for-pound best lyricist, the antithesis of the shameful Vanilla Ice. At a time in hip hop when Cash Money was the biggest thing out and you couldn’t escape Bad Boy artists dancing in shiny suits, one white kid coming straight from Rawkus Records got signed to Aftermath by “the” Dr. Dre, the father of G-funk, and introduced his name to the world over a Labi Siffre sample. “Hi, kids/do you like violence/wanna see me stick nine-inch nails/through each one of my eyelids.” Yeah, we did like violence and all the crazy stuff he rapped about, and his coming from the gutter to be one of the biggest stars in the world. But what do you rap about once you become a millionaire? Where is your inspiration? How can you relate with people? With a few exceptions, it usually all goes downhill from there and this new record, Relapse, is further proof. Bummer.

On the local tip, Escape Entertainment is putting together Vol. 2 of the Mount Real mixtape series and accepting submissions of all kinds (freestyles, singles etc.), as long as it’s exclusive material, to create the new volume of this free compilation that will feature the best and freshest in the city. It’ll be given online for free and promotional use only, in addition to 5,000 copies that will be handed out at the launch party (TBA) and throughout networks all over the country and down in New York. This is a great chance for us to participate in something collectively and put our local hip hop scene on the map, so get into this and submit your best stuff to info@escpaemtl.ca.

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS… DABEATSEEKER@GMAIL.COM