Marshall Bruce Mathers III (aka, Slim Shady, aka, Eminem) tried to kill himself. Surviving, he went on to place second at the 1997 Rap Olympics which lead to a demo request at the hands of Jimmy Iovine, CEO of Interscope Records. He shared it with DRE. A year later, The Source featured Eminem in its “Unsigned Hype” column.

Em is pure energy. Pushing the limits, he’s dropped tracks ranging from spectacular to “eh”, as he notes on his latest album. Good or bad, he brought some freshness to the scene as “The Great White American Hope”.

“My name is Marshall Mathers, I’m an alcoholic (Hi Marshall)”; starting out with a sketch so bad, I don’t even know what to call it.

“But I form like Voltron and blast you with my shoulder missiles”; yellow then orange outlines, that’s my visual initial.

“I’m not a real person, I’m a ghost trapped in a beat”; Em gets covered with New York Post paper sheets.

“Bitch I’ma kill you! Like a murder weapon, I’ma conceal you”; with headlines top to bottom, almost ready to reveal you.

“Dear Stan, I meant to write you sooner but I just been busy”; I was hiding behind headlines, even if you squinted you couldn’t even see me.

“Y’all act like you never seen a white person before”; painted on paper, emerging from the back to the fore.

“Baby, {ooh baby}, look at my sales, let’s do the math, if I was black, I would’ve sold half”; I didn’t have to go to art school to know payne’s grey ain’t black.

“From these activists when they raggin’, actin’ like I’m the first rapper to smack a bitch, or, Say faggot”; just look at him, a desaturated poster child, almost poppin’ now.

“They call me superman, leap tall hoes in a single bound”; got a rainbow colored flag on this canvas now.

“Subliminal thoughts when I’m stop sending them women are caught in webs spin and hauk venom”; adrenaline strokes of colored paint, black and white hard stop.

“There’s several different levels to Devil worshippin: horse’s heads, human sacrifices, canibalism”; painted figure, headline collage exorcism.

“Bitch you don’t fucking think I know that you suck dick dummy?”; get on the paint slick, impasto marks, feels money.

“Call it evil that men do, lord forgive me for what my pen do”; a thin Windsor Newt paint brush to create you.

“You could try and read my lyrics off of this paper before I lay ’em”; but it’s not all about what the headlines on this canvas say in ’em.

“Okay quit playin with the scissors and shit, and cut the crap”; time to pare the shadows, more dimensionality front to back.

“His new Slim Shady EP’s got the attention of the mighty D. R. E HE’S ALMOST FAMOUS”; and he is now finished. While he hasn’t traded places, he’s surely changed in faces.