Grammys

[Mythy Collins]

dunno how to make it bigger, so i gave up

[MARVELL]

dunno how to make it bigger, so i gave up

part of the message can be seen still. its getting really f*cked up now

the illuminati PR are a complete failure since every girl i know has now taken it upon herself to become an illuminati 'exposer'.

[Mythy Collins]

cool story bro

[Yoshie]

[Michel Kane]

Grammys 2011: Eminem's rage is towering but is it righteous?

Once again, Eminem's raw emotional power has been rewarded at the Grammys – but perhaps at the expense of black artists

As actor and comedian Seth Rogen indicated while introducing Eminem (Marshall Mathers), Detroit's hip-hop champion owns a "bad ass" reputation that precedes him. Eminem's personal history is full of self-loathing, self-destructive behaviour, a penchant for lyrical violence and inexcusable insensitivity about the damaging effects of sexist and homophobic performances. Despite the stains on his resume, Eminem managed to get clean and climb back to the top of the pop-cultural mountain with his haul at the 2011 Grammys. He forged an unlikely path back from a wasteland of substance abuse – one paved with anger, honesty, and vulnerability.

I want to celebrate Eminem's longevity and success, while advancing a three-pronged critique. First, Eminem has been disproportionately rewarded by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Second, no black artist who is as publicly and consistently angry as Eminem has ever reaped similar rewards, either from the academy itself, or from the music industry more broadly. Third, this peculiar truth has come to pass not simply because Mathers is white, but because his anger has historically been directed towards women, queer people and himself – that is, marginal subjects – rather than white supremacy and/or patriarchy.

Even Mathers himself would acknowledge that five "Best Rap Album" awards in 16 years is an absurd total. For a quick and dirty comparison, peruse the list of recipients of the Grammy for "Best Rock Album" over the same time period. Foo Fighters have won the award three times, and no other act has won it more than twice. In the rap album category, not only has Eminem won five awards, Kanye West has won three, which means that half of the 16 awards have been given to two artists. Clearly, the boundaries of the academy's hip-hop universe need to be expanded.

Notwithstanding legitimate qualms with the Grammy nomination and voting process, Eminem's achievement must be recognised. "Recovery" is a good album. It is thoughtful and precise, and it leaves no doubt about Eminem's skill level, especially relative to the collaborators on the LP, whom he repeatedly outshines.

What drives the album is more than narrative and musical arrangement, it is Eminem's emotional sincerity – a quality on full display during last night's performance of "Love the Way You Lie" (from "Recovery"), and "I Need a Doctor" (from his mentor, Dr Dre's forthcoming album). On the record with Dre, Eminem expresses deep gratitude for Dre's investment in him, while shouting and rapping in pain and frustration about Dre's recent fall from grace and inability to remain productive. Though Eminem's raps were accompanied by a recorded version of the track playing in the background, the glare in his eyes and strain of veins and tendons in his face and neck pulsated from the stage, into the live audience and into our living rooms.

We are thrilled by live performances because they fuse artistic brilliance with the courage required to risk public shame. Eminem's performance was courageous. However, the recipient list for "Best Rap Album" suggests deepseated racial incongruity about what constitutes artistic courage, and which forms of anger and vulnerability are acceptable to the academy. No other rapper has channelled a stream of rage comparable to Mathers's performance during a televised performance on Grammy night. In addition, three of Eminem's early albums, The Slim Shady LP (1999), The Marshall Mathers LP (2000) and The Eminem Show (2002), became sites of significant moral panic thanks to their rage quotient.

The only black commercial rap superstar who approached Mathers's public emotional persona, however briefly, was Tupac Shakur during the later stages of his career. However, Shakur's spite, rage and self-loathing were masked in a more palatable glaze of sexual excess and materialism by the time he was nominated for the "Best Rap Album" Grammy in 1996 and 1997. Other than Eminem, previous winners such as The Fugees, Puff Daddy, Outkast, Ludacris, and Lil' Wayne are more readily characterised by smooth, eccentric and stylish hip-hop pride, than unabashed discontent.

My final point deals with the focal points of Eminem's anger and the absence of righteous discontent about racism. Women (including Mathers's former wife) and queer people are repeated targets of Eminem's rhetorical attacks on his early albums. Degrading these groups and lionising domination-driven masculinity are time-worn traditions of patriarchy. These tactics pose no threat to the social order. Moreover, Eminem's rage is at least partially viewed through the lenses of sincerity and vulnerability. His tumultuous relationship with his mother and former wife are frequently ushered forth as the source of his trouble.

In contrast, rage derived from experience as someone repeatedly subject to racial injustice upsets the social order, and falls on less sympathetic ears. To the academy's credit, acts like Outkast and Kanye West received "Best Rap Album" awards for albums that contain critiques of racial inequality. But while sharp and incisive, the racially relevant displeasure articulated by Outkast and Kanye is often delivered covertly, with humour and tenderness, rather than fire and brimstone.

Again, Eminem deserves accolades, and I am not arguing that explicit lyrics or his acerbic disposition should disqualify him from Grammy consideration. But his anger is divorced from a robust social critique, and far too frequently directed towards disempowered people. Conversely, it remains unacceptable for non-white performers to be visibly angry, especially if anger is articulated as a response to racism and racial inequality. Even in the musical realm, where artists have proven so adept at beautifying rage and transforming it into empathy, these limits remain.

Man's won Best Rap Album 5 times? f*ck*ng hell, madness. Good read.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/14/grammys-eminem-hiphop

[Mr Q]

Very good read and good points.

Conversely, it remains unacceptable for non-white performers to be visibly angry, especially if anger is articulated as a response to racism and racial inequality. Even in the musical realm, where artists have proven so adept at beautifying rage and transforming it into empathy, these limits remain.

C/S a lot of that.

But actually thinking about it, Em has dropped some good social commentary on white America though.

But most awards shows are just a popularity contest anyway, especially the grammy's. Him winning 5 best rap albums his surely proof of this.

[Dipset]

ciara - interesting

swear ll hasnt aged in the past 10 years

she looks ok after having twins

should've dropped the egg..

uncle diddy

pretty

[Michel Kane]

Lol, J-Lo fell the f*ck off.

Jenny from the Block look like she got the curves of one.

[Mr Q]

Why does Ciara look like He-Man?

[Wavant]

Sheit! Kim

Puffy's swag>>>

f*ck*ng devil

[MARVELL]

tyrese jus rolled in from the pub

[NiNES.]

kk = perfect

would munch and crunch

[Guest Yilmaz]

kk = perfect

would munch and crunch

LOL, them ones.

Taking her p*ssy for any corn based snack.

[Guest Yilmaz]

so ur really trying this comedian ting ye?

Bruv

Shattap

[Mr Q]

On ITV2 now.

Gaga is such a Madonna rebore.

[Guest Esquilax]

Y IS CEELO DRESSED LIKE THT

Y IS GWENETH PALTROW SINGING EVEN THO SHES NOT DOIN TOO BAD

Loool what I was thinking

Didn't get that at all

[imhim]

where can this be watched

[imhim]

IT STARTED AT 10PM FFS

WHERE DO I WATCH IT AFTA DAT

/

ill have to settle for itv2+1

[Lieutenant]

Rihanna needs to stop doing that to me

[Mr Q]

Drake was happs

[North Aleng]

rhianna didnt let me down like she did on da brits,

[Lieutenant]

Swear I saw her p*ssy, f*ck.