Feb 22, 2017 eminem mainstreamed confessional rap. it's an easy line from scarface to em to kanye etc in terms of making personal issues/people in your life characters, central to lyrical content. broadly he also furthered rock rap and hinted at reality tv's emerging popularity (pop culture wise anyway). not going to say he's more important than sylvia robinson or six in the mornin but i REFUSE to whitewash rimshot his contributions at the same time @WPG
Feb 22, 2017 Fair point on the confessional rap point. But who is rock rap popular with aside from inbred yelawolf fans?
Feb 22, 2017 i don't think he was very influential on rap. i will totally grant you that he captured/was emblematic of a broader pop culture moment, but i don't think you can look at the last third of each dmx album from 98 and conclude that em made it cool to be confessional
Feb 22, 2017 I read this comment 3 times but I still cant believe it.. do I see a compliment in here?
Feb 22, 2017 i mean sure he's not precisely a pioneer. isnt the fact stan is part of the hip hop lexicon an indication maybe youre selling him short? in some ways we are talking about two different things - pop culture dialogue v. nitty gritty genre influence - but they're also intertwined. at the risk of conflating im curious whether youd claim elvis had no influence on rock n roll bc there werent a flurry of pelvis thrusting Lotharios in his wake
Feb 22, 2017 lol well i don't think that's a fair parallel because there's obviously a sizable batch of musicians who took musical cues from elvis--though for a shorter window than his popularity might suggest, i'll def concede that. yeah i mean em was wildly popular and you see hints of that today (stan, odd future, the alt-right). he's not FORGOTTEN by any means, of course not. but there wasn't much of his genetic code passed into other rappers--and you have to knock down points when your influence falls so far short of your popularity, no?
Feb 22, 2017 Outkast André with his overall personality and The Love Below, but even more as a group.
Feb 22, 2017 lol yes eminem was a harbinger of the alt-right. im glad you're finally viewing him in earnest! i do think the elvis comparison is more apt then you're admitting, at least artificially -- like, the templates for a wildly popular trendsetter. i think their level popularity imo correlates to - minimum - some level of iconic status, which inherently implies influence. like how can an icon not exert influence? in film terms, you're suggesting eminem is perhaps the equivalent of the police academy* movies. that his music and popularity was skin-deep, a disposable legacy. plenty of rappers have credited eminems lyrical energy as a source of inspiration - same as elvis no and no, police academy is NOT >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> manchester
