You Got Me

That role, being the truth-telling prophet to a generation, is troublesome. Some truths are hard and self-destructive. Some are conflicting to the point of schizophrenia. Tupac wrote the feminist elegy “Brenda’s Got a Baby” and the abusive “Wonda Why They Call U Bitch”; Eminem wrote the desperate “Rock Bottom” and the mischievous “Just Don’t Give a Fuck.” These boys are both “mad at cha” and not mad. They “Just Don’t Give a Fuck,” and they do. And they’re not in the business of committing crimes. They’re rappers. “The fact that a man picks up a microphone-that’s it, you see?” says Eminem. “That’s what makes him a rapper. It’s not a gun. It’s a microphone.” This is something the antirap contingent of the Senate has never understood. Eminem’s show on the Anger Management Tour (he’s on the same bill with Ludacris and Papa Roach) opens with a video montage of real American politicians condemning the dangerous social phenomenon that is Eminem. Reality check: The FBI reports that there were 90,186 rapes and 15,517 murders reported in America in 2000. Eminem committed none of them.