this rap game, this rap game

When getting to know me, people usually ask who my hero is. Typically, I don't have a clear answer to that question; that is, until now. The more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes. My hero is Eminem.

Yes, the new-age, self proclaimed "King of Controversy" is my hero. I've actually liked him since I was a young teenager,but for different reasons back then. When I was younger, I just thought he was a cute guy who rapped and cursed a lot. My parents hated him, which was even more reason for me to like him. His first album that I purchased was the Marshall Mathers LP; I didn't know about any of his earlier albums until a lot later. Anyway - I learned the lyrics to his songs, rapped along with him while I blasted the bass in the car (mostly when I was angry about something) and didn't pay much attention to what he was really saying.

Up until recently, his music was an outlet for me to just yell, curse, and rip all of my frustrations out of me. I didn't realize that I would find a deeper meaing to his music and understand what he was talking about.

Fast forward to the present -about 8 years later- my boyfriend introduced me to his album that preceded the Marshall Mathers LP, the Eminem LP. I knew only a little bit about it, but I borrowed it and that was all I played for the next week. I was entranced by not only the music, but the words. His rhymes were so precise and the things that he was saying really hit me hard. In my favorite song, "If I Had" , Eminem talks about all the things he's tired of, and all the things he wishes he had. This song really influenced me because he tells, in such a raw, intimate and slightly poetic way, how he wants more for himself. That's me. I want so much more. I want to accomplish so many things in my lifetime, and just hearing those words from someone else made me relize how much he wanted it and how much I should want it too - how much EVERYONE should want more.



"If I Had..."

Life.. by Marshall Mathers
What is life?Life is like a big obstacle
put in front of your optical to slow you down
And everytime you think you gotten past it
it's gonna come back around and tackle you to the damn ground

What are friends?Friends are people that you think are your friends
But they really your enemies, with secret indentities
and disguises, to hide they true colors
So just when you think you close enough to be brothers
they wanna come back and cut your throat when you ain't lookin

What is money?
Money is what makes a man act funny
Money is the root of all evil
Money'll make them same friends come back around
swearing that they was always down

What is life?
I'm tired of life
I'm tired of backstabbing ass snakes with friendly grins
I'm tired of committing so many sins
Tired of always giving in when this bottle of Henny wins
Tired of never having any ends
Tired of having skinny friends hooked on crack and mini-thins
I'm tired of this DJ playing YOUR shit when he spins
Tired of not having a deal
Tired of having to deal with the bullshit without grabbing the steel
Tired of drowning in my sorrow
Tired of having to borrow a dollar for gas to start my Monte Carlo
I'm tired of motherfuckers spraying shit and dartin off
I'm tired of jobs startin off at five fifty an hour
then this boss wanders why I'm smartin off
I'm tired of being fired everytime I fart and cough
Tired of having to work as a gas station clerk
for this jerk breathing down my neck driving me bezerk
I'm tired of using plastic silverware
Tired of working in Building Square
Tired of not being a millionaire

But if I had a million dollars
I'd buy a damn brewery, and turn the planet into alcoholics
If I had a magic wand, I'd make the world suck my dick
without a condom on, while I'm on the john
If I had a million bucks
it wouldn't be enough, because I'd still be out
robbing armored trucks
If I had one wish
I would ask for a big enough ass for the whole world to kiss


I'm tired of being white trash, broke and always poor
Tired of taking pop bottles back to the party store
I'm tired of not having a phone
Tired of not having a home to have one in if I did have it on
Tired of not driving a BM
Tired of not working at GM, tired of wanting to be him
Tired of not sleeping without a Tylenol PM
Tired of not performing in a packed coliseum
Tired of not being on tour
Tired of fucking the same blonde whore after work
in the back of a Contour
I'm tired of faking knots with a stack of ones

Having a lack of funds and resorting back to guns
Tired of being stared at
I'm tired of wearing the same damn Nike Air hat
Tired of stepping in clubs wearing the same pair of Lugz
Tired of people saying they're tired of hearing me rap about drugs
Tired of other rappers who ain't bringin half the skill as me
saying they wasn't feeling me on "Nobody's As Ill As Me"
I'm tired of radio stations telling fibs
Tired of J-L-B saying "Where Hip-Hop Lives"

But if I had a million dollars
I'd buy a damn brewery, and turn the planet into alcoholics
If I had a magic wand, I'd make the world suck my dick
without a condom on, while I'm on the john
If I had a million bucks
it wouldn't be enough, because I'd still be out
robbing armored trucks
If I had one wish
I would ask for a big enough ass for the whole world to kiss


You know what I'm saying?
I'm tired of all of this bullshit
Telling me to be positive
How'm I 'sposed to be positive when I don't see shit positive?
Know what I'm sayin?
I rap about shit around me, shit I see
Know what I'm sayin? Right now I'm tired of everything
Tired of all this player hating that's going on in my own city

Can't get no airplay, you know what I'm sayin?
But ey, it's cool though, you know what I'm sayin?
Just fed up
That's my word

Stop Sippin Haterade

"Don't hate, it's too big a burden to bear."
- Martin Luther King Jr.



I love this quote. Well, I love everything that Martin Luther King Jr. stands for, but this quote of his stands out to me the most. Okay, maybe not as much as his world-renowned "I Have a Dream" speech, but this is definitely up there... Well, you get my point.

Anyway, I understand this quote to mean that you shouldn't hate others because it just causes too much trouble for yourself. When you spent your precious time hating other people, it takes away time that you could be doing something else - something more enjoyable than hate. Hate is such a strong emotion, and it takes so much effort and strength to exude, that it leaves you drained of other emotions.

I believe that hate is a toxic emotion. Once it starts, it spreads to those around you. If you spend all your time hating others, that's all that others will do when they associate with you. Its a viscous cycle that ends with everyone being unhappy. Its much easier to let things go, stop the hate, and move on with life. I think that's what Martin Luther King, Jr. was talking about.

Andy Warhol is my new Obsession

An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have.
Andy Warhol

Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there - I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television.
Andy Warhol

Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.
Andy Warhol

Don't pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches.
Andy Warhol

During the 1960s, I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don't think they've ever remembered.
Andy Warhol

Dying is the most embarrassing thing that can ever happen to you, because someone's got to take care of all your details.
Andy Warhol

Employees make the best dates. You don't have to pick them up and they're always tax-deductible.
Andy Warhol

Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.
Andy Warhol

Fantasy love is much better than reality love. Never doing it is very exciting. The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet.
Andy Warhol

I always thought I'd like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I'd like it to say "figment."
Andy Warhol

I always wished I had died, and I still wish that, because I could have gotten the whole thing over with.
Andy Warhol

I am a deeply superficial person.
Andy Warhol

I had a lot of dates but I decided to stay home and dye my eyebrows.
Andy Warhol

I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumors to my dogs.
Andy Warhol

I like boring things.
Andy Warhol

I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.
Andy Warhol

I never think that people die. They just go to department stores.
Andy Warhol

I never understood why when you died, you didn't just vanish, everything could just keep going on the way it was only you just wouldn't be there. I always thought I'd like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I'd like it to say 'figment.'
Andy Warhol

I suppose I have a really loose interpretation of ''work,'' because I think that just being alive is so much work at something you don't always want to do. The machinery is always going. Even when you sleep.
Andy Warhol

I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own.
Andy Warhol

I used to think that everything was just being funny but now I don't know. I mean, how can you tell?
Andy Warhol

I'd asked around 10 or 15 people for suggestions. Finally one lady friend asked the right question, 'Well, what do you love most?' That's how I started painting money.
Andy Warhol

I'm afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.
Andy Warhol

I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is "In 15 minutes everybody will be famous."
Andy Warhol

I'm the type who'd be happy not going anywhere as long as I was sure I knew exactly what was happening at the places I wasn't going to. I'm the type who'd like to sit home and watch every party that I'm invited to on a monitor in my bedroom.
Andy Warhol

I've decided something: Commercial things really do stink. As soon as it becomes commercial for a mass market it really stinks.
Andy Warhol

If you want to know all about Andy Warhol , just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it.
Andy Warhol

In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.
Andy Warhol

Isn't life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?
Andy Warhol

It would be very glamorous to be reincarnated as a great big ring on Liz Taylor's finger.
Andy Warhol

It's the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it.
Andy Warhol

Land really is the best art.
Andy Warhol

Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.
Andy Warhol

My idea of a good picture is one that's in focus and of a famous person.
Andy Warhol

Once you 'got' Pop, you could never see a sign again the same way again. And once you thought Pop, you could never see America the same way again.
Andy Warhol

People need to be made more aware of the need to work at learning how to live because life is so quick and sometimes it goes away too quickly.
Andy Warhol

Sex is more exciting on the screen and between the pages than between the sheets.
Andy Warhol

Since people are going to be living longer and getting older, they'll just have to learn how to be babies longer.
Andy Warhol

The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet.
Andy Warhol

The most exciting thing is not doing it. If you fall in love with someone and never do it, it's much more exciting.
Andy Warhol

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
Andy Warhol

What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest.
Andy Warhol

When I got my first television set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships.
Andy Warhol