Eminem – A Champion for Family Values ?!?
The answer to that is pretty obvious right? A loud resounding ‘NO’ just about does it. Love him or hate him (and for the record, we love him) we can all agree that were Frankie to reproduce the murderous rage, spite, bitterness, criminal intent and the general venom that rapper, songwriter, producer and actor Marshall Mathers III is capable of penning and spitting, the state would have him forcibly neutered and kept in solitary confinement. There is no way Eminem will be winning any Family Values awards anytime soon that’s for sure.
And yet, we are increasingly coming to believe that the answer to the question above is – a sort of ‘maybe.’ Eminem – and others like him… yeah they sort of do have family on the mind. An article by Mary Eberstadt called ‘Eminem is Right’ completely turned us around. It’s quite a lengthy read but if you have the time and the interest it is well worth it. Check it out at: http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/7650
Especially here in Kuwait, we have often had to put up with criticisms against the music we listen to or produce. The whole ‘What the hell sort of garbage are these kids listening to’ is not just a Middle Eastern phenomenon. Sure we have more powerful entities fighting a music culture here, but everywhere around the world, the previous generation of parents are horrified at the sort of messages that the music of our generation are reveling in. And maybe they should. It’s violent, vulgar, misogynistic, glorifying of everything from drug abuse, murder and rape to self-harm and suicide. Seriously – explicit language is the LEAST of our problems. But instead of asking ‘what the hell are they listening to’, the previous generation have rarely asked the most important of all questions ‘Why are they listening to it?’
In the 60s and the 70s, the public image of music was far different from what it is now. It was a great time in some ways, revolutionary in terms of world culture. People staged musical events defying the Vietnam War. They were throwing off the shackles of a Christian religious system that had gotten too used to telling them how to live. It was the time of the sexual revolution – lots of supposed ‘free love’ and a decline in the value of monogamy. Baby boomers and their music were all about rebellion against parents and authority figures because they were over-involved and overly present in the lives of their children. People stood up for things and fought for freedoms against everything they felt held them back.
But eventually the narcissistic, carefree teenagers of the 60s and 70s grew up into parents of today. Allow us to include some quotes from the article itself.
‘If yesterday’s rock was the music of abandon, today’s is that of abandonment. The odd truth about contemporary teenage music … is its compulsive insistence on the damage wrought by broken homes, family dysfunction, checked-out parents, and (especially) absent fathers. Papa Roach, Everclear, Blink-182, Good Charlotte, Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Eminem — these and other singers and bands, all of them award-winning top-40 performers who either are or were among the most popular icons in America, have their own generational answer to what ails the modern teenager: dysfunctional childhood. ’We have enshrined a new generation of music idols whose shared generational signature in song after song is to rage about what NOT having had a nuclear family has done to them.’
Yesterday’s teenagers rebelled against parents who were too involved. ‘ Today’s teenagers and their music rebel against parents because they are not parents — not nurturing, not attentive, and often not even there…’
It really is interesting that today, many people want to blame this music solely on the artists who create them … but the artists point a finger back. ‘This is the sound of one generation reproaching another’ — the abandoned, angry and tired children screaming back at parents who didn’t give a rat’s ass about family values.
Read the article to learn more about these artists OWN views on what not having a proper family has done to them…
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as a side note:
For KM, culturally we are stuck between figures that DO want to be over-involved and also those that couldn’t care less about us. It’s no wonder we are confused – depending on who you are, you could be going through either. So we have bluesmen who haven’t really suffered anything, Rappers who wouldn’t know a ghetto if it crawled up their asses and started a family – and metalheads who rage against the fact that they have to repay their massive bankloans (ok a tiny exaggeration there).
Since we are constantly fighting our own battles in trying to create a music culture, it just helps to face up to the fact that no – not all the music we listen to is completely harmless, completely devoid of vulgarity, completely unpolitical and something we can sugarcoat so that the powers that be accept us. It is what it is.
Also what are we doing with our generation’s music that is totally going to screw up the next one? It bears thinking about.
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Alright, read the article. There will be a pop quiz!
About the Author
Frankie and Masoud Frankie and Masoud are Kuwait Music's professional reviewers. 'Nuff said!
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excellent writing. i think the music we listen to today is further hardening and removing the soul from music of the next generation. as synthesized and electronic sounds become a majority of most features, the human spirit and character in music is dying a slow but sure death.
tried to understand the article and read it more than once but still there are things that are not clear to me.
Are we trying to evaluate WHY teenagers listen to their music? Are we trying to see the influence of big names and artists on how people behave and act? I’m honestly lost.
I’ve come to one conclusion though. Any person who has his/her own will should decide for him/herself. I might really admire a musician, a band, a scene ect, but at the end of the day what I do as a person is completely my business and I won’t enforce that on others.
I learned from a lot of people and continue to do so but I wouldn’t take everything for granted or as the whole truth if it came from another person no matter how out worldly I perceive his/her/their talent.
As for screwing up the next generation, is that a viable option? can’t we just try and fix ourselves the best way we can so that the next generation would try harder to fix themselves?
I think the main point is that parents, religious leaders, authority etc. back then were overly involved in their kids lives. so the kids made music that essentially said ‘back off – we want our freedom to have a good time.’
When those kids grew up they were still trying to have a good time, minus responsibility – and hence became the worst parents in the world – caring about freedom more than their own kids – hence divorce rates.
so our music is – ”what the hell?? you call yourselves parents? why did you even have kids if you werent going to care about us and be involved in our lives.’
so even though our music is vile its making a point – we CARE about family values. look what happens to us without them.
so our musicians make that sort of music and our listeners, who also have experiences of broken family – eat it up because its like theyre talking about a universal experience
Selda that is a fantastic point and probably needs a lot of thinking through.
the previous generation gave us bad parenting and our music is about how we have no families. But now we seem to be making music that is more electronic – more detached from anything organic.
Have you heard of the Cybergoth culture? In Cybergoth clubs, the main theme is isolation. People dance alone – not in a ‘im having a great time’ sort of way. Club wear is very robotic and sci fi. Sure it makes sense with our modern technology for that to happen but is it just a coincidence that the theme is ‘isolation’ and being removed from humanity and human relationships? And that’s what we leave as a legacy to the next generation.
We are definitely going to look into this. thanks for that.
Ahmad – we take your point.
But the entire idea of saying ‘what i do is my business’ is exactly what our whole generation is suffering from. The last generation believed that they could have affairs, abandon their kids, completely ditch religion and rebel in every form – because they believed that everything they did was nobody’s business. In Kuwait we have something similar but it involves money a lot more.
But the fact of the matter is – parents affect their kids and yes kids affect their parents, and kids in school affect other kids and advertising has you and me buying shit we dont need (except KM – you NEEEEEED KM).
We need human relationships to survive. So whatever we do we WILL affect the next generation. And yes we agree – we should try and fix ourselves as well possible for ourselves and the next generation.
Please dont think we are saying ‘what good to listen to and what’s not. This is in NO way even addressing that. We listen to every sort of music under the sun because we believe there is something of value to find even in the darkest places.
The point of the article is more about stating facts – this is what they left us with. This is what we are leaving behind. When we tell off our kids for their completely bleak and non-human music in the future, we need to be aware of the fact that WE put them there.
We are loving this discussion btw.
I was focusing on music as a medium dear friends. I can’t be the person who goes like “ooooh your music is making waaaay to much noise,” or “your music sucks.” I’ll be the same as those who denounced the Blues as “nigro music” and I’m not that kind of a person.
I began listening to music waaaay to late and at one point. I thought that Bon Jovi was the only band that deserved respect. Now when I’m 30. I have a total different proespective due several experiences. I made a solmen decision to listen to what makes sense to me without shoving that in another individual’s throat.
I hear a lot of music out there. I might dislike its content or message but I won’t lead a witch hunt against a person or group just because.
Here is an example, GG Alain was one of the most abnoxious errrm Punk performers out there before he kicked the bucket in a shameless way and I just don’t like the guy; however, I’ve seen him in a video with his mother and he seemed to be a very tame person around her. Makes me question his horrible antics on stage.
We might think this is no good or That is no go swell but how do we fix it?
Fix ourselves and maybe the kids tomorrow would go like “hey! There is a band call Minor Threat and they talk about living clean and not doing drugs ect.”
PS: as for the last example, the whole Straight Edge thing waaaay back in the 1980s and until now is a kind of a good thing, but I don’t think the band Minor Threat or lead singer and Washington DC Punk guru Ian Mackaye wanted that particular song “Straight Edge” to become some sort of a cult or militant group enforcing the cleaning living ideals on people.
So there you go. My whole point is do good in music as well as and if others wanna do it fine, their choice not mine.
yOURE 30?! I wouldnt imagine you being over 25!
I’m old as Mumra -_-
“Anicent spirits of evil help transform this decay body to MUUUUMRA THE EVER LIIIIIIIVING!” … good thing I got that outta my system
eminem is a great legend
most of his songs are based on
his true life
i love to hear his song even
i am in good mood or bad mood
and waiting for his new album strike on 2013
the best of alltime -eminem – salute for him
Ahmad
sorry! been out the loop cus Frankie got ill (damn this weather!)
As you pointed out the article deals more with the content of the music than the genre. so it’s not so much about the noise or the colour of the artist – more about the whole ‘explicit content/lyrics’ thing. The themes that run behind the music.
And as I’ve said – we are musicians ourselves – we benefit from having a WIDE variety of styles, genres and themes to be able to listen to, draw from and inspire us. That’s why we don’t we also enjoy (between me and Frankie) goth, doom and death metal, gangster rap and perhaps the two darkest and most vile genres – country and boy/girl band.
We hate witch hunts – they destroy freedom of expression and creativity. And we agree with you – the way to deal with this sort of thing is PERSONAL responsibility (not one individual telling the other how to handle their music.)
But I don’t think the article was necessarily making a value judgement (ie this is wrong or right.) With articles like these its more about pointing out cultural trends and patterns so that – if we hadnt noticed them before, we notice them now. In fact I think if it does ANY blaming, it points at the ones who lead the witchhunt against music and says ‘are you serious? Are you trying to condemn what you helped create?
Musicians are leaders because you’re going to get heard by a lot more people than if you simply spoke. Unless you have the speaking abilities of someone like MLK, Gandhi or Hitler. And the most genuine and natural thing for us to do as musicians is to write about what we know and have experienced – whether thats bad or good. There are plenty of examples of BOTH on the Kuwait Music Scene and you can spot the guys who are just fakers a mile away.
anyway i’m just blabbin at this point.
shandippa – hell yes eminem is a incredibly talented individual. He’s had a rough life and he’s earned the right to let loose. But let’s face it – talking about murdering your wife is not cool it’s called criminal intent. I’m sure rappers in Kuwait have stuff to rage and rejoice about as well – Money, cars, women, bling – all of that. But unless you’re a labourer or part of the ‘less fortunate’ class in Kuwait – there IS no ghetto life, money troubles, gang culture and it makes me laugh how some rappers here want to pretend they’ve lived the ghetto life and talk about suburban emo-influenced pain while recording in their studios in their villas that someone else pays for.
not hating – just saying! If we as a culture want you want GHETTO rap we need to start scouting for artists in Jleeb, indian salmiya, Abbasiya and other areas where ppl are literally ‘hustling and pimping’ to make ends meet.
I get your point dudes or — dude in this situation XD — I do agree musicians here should reflect their own experiences through the output they provide and not well … stick to stereotypes provided by the genre, sound, or heck society.
There is no need to be something other than being you. I see a lot of youngsters and heck even adults stick to the image or what the genre required to pass as a rapper, a punk, a metal head, a hipster, a raver, and I mean you name. I don’t condemn it nor should I accept that as a rule applied to me to be involved in music or society in general.
It all goes back to the individual at the end.