2020-07-01
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3.1. Примеры интервью
Eminem interview: "Chocolate on the inside" (Spin, 2000)
Spin: From listening to your album, you get the impression that your childhood was pretty much a living hell. What was it really like?
Eminem: I was born in Kansas City, and my dad left when I was five or six months old. Then when I was five we moved to a real bad part of Detroit. I was getting beat up a lot, so we moved back to K.C., then back to Detroit again when I was 11. My mother couldn't afford to raise me, but then she had my little brother, so when we moved back to Michigan, we were just staying wherever we could, with my grandmother or whatever family would put us up. I know my mother tried to do the best she could, but I was bounced around so much - it seemed like we moved every two or three months. I'd go to, like, six different schools in one year. We were on welfare, and my mom never ever worked. I'm not trying to give some sob story, like, "Oh, I've been broke all my life," but people who know me know it's true. There were times when friends had to buy me f***in' shoes! I was poor white trash, no glitter, no glamour, but I'm not ashamed of anything.
Spin: These were mostly African-American neighborhoods where you grew up?
Eminem: Yeah, near 8 Mile Road in Detroit, which separates the suburbs from the city. Almost all the blacks are on one side, and almost all the whites are on the other, but all the families nearby are low-income. We lived on the black side. Most of the time it was relatively cool, but I would get beat up sometimes when I'd walk around the neighborhood and kids didn't know me. One day I got jumped by, like, six dudes for no reason. I also got shot at, and ended up running out of my shoes, crying. I was 15 years old and I didn't know how to handle that shit.
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Spin: Were most of your friends black?
Eminem: When you're a little kid, you don't see color, and the fact that my friends were black never crossed my mind. It never became an issue until I was a teenager and started trying to rap. Then I'd notice that a lot of motherfuckers always had my back, but somebody always had to say to them, "Why you have to stick up for the white boy?"
Spin: When did you first get into hip-hop?
Eminem: The first hip-hop shit I ever heard was that song "Reckless" from the Breakin' soundtrack; my cousin played me the tape when I was, like, nine. There was this mixed school I went to in fifth grade, one with lots of Asian and black kids and everybody was into break dancing. They always had the latest rap tapes-the Fat Boys, L.L. Cool J's Radio-and I thought it was the most incredible shit I'd ever heard.
Spin: What'd you think when you first heard the Beastie Boys?
Eminem: That's what really did it for me. I was like, "This shit is so dope!" That's when I decided I wanted to rap. I'd hang out on the corner where kids would be rhyming, and when I tried to get in there, I'd get dissed. A little color issue developed, and as I got old enough to hit the clubs, it got really bad. I wasn't that dope yet, but I knew I could rhyme, so I'd get on the open mics and shit, and a couple of times I was booed off the stage.
Spin: Your single ("My Name Is") is getting played on both Modern Rock and Urban radio. Are you surprised at how quickly you're being accepted?
Eminem: Thing is, I'm not really a commercial rapper. My whole market, my whole steez, is through the underground; if those hip-hop heads love it, I'll rise above. It's like, you hardly ever hear a Wu-Tang song on the radio, but they rose from the underground on word of mouth.
Spin: Has being white really affected the way you see yourself as a rapper?
Eminem: In the beginning, the majority of my shows were for all-black crowds, and people would always say, "You're dope for a white boy," and I'd take it as a compliment. Then, as I got older, I started to think, "What the f*** does that mean?" Nobody asks to be born, nobody has a choice of what color they'll be, or whether they'll be fat, skinny, anything. I had to work up to a certain level before people would even look past my color; a lot of motherf***ers would just sit with their arms folded and be like, "All right, what is this?" But as time went on, I started to get respect. The best thing a motherf***er ever said about me was after an open mic in Detroit about five years ago. He was like, "I don't give a f*** if he's green, I don't give a f*** if he's orange, this motherf***er is dope!" Nobody has the right to tell me what kind of music to listen to or how to dress or how to act or how to talk; if people want to make jokes, well f*** 'em. I lived this s***, you know what I'm sayin'? And if you hear an Eminem record, you're gonna know the minute that it comes on that this ain't no fluke.
Barack Obama interview
