The Serious Side of Eminem: The Rolling Stone Interview

Someone might die.

It's gotta be ill to not be able to just battle out like you want to. Battling has been such a great part of hip-hop history.

It's sad. But I'm not gonna sit back and watch my people be hurt. It's like a Bush thing: You're just sending your troops off to war and you ain't in it. You're fuckin' playing golf and you sent your soldiers over to get killed. As you get older, you start to think that if you're just beefin' to be beefin' or tryin' to sell records, that's not the way to go. Because what usually ends up happening is somebody's entourage gets hurt. And it's not worth it. Battling always started out like a mind game: who could psych who out, who could look the scariest. Then it became people saying, "This is my life you're fucking with. This is everything I stand for, this is my career. If my career is gone tomorrow, then my life is gone tomorrow." That's how people end up losing lives.

Last year, "The Source" uncovered a tape that you made when you were sixteen where you said "nigger." What was that about?

This is what we used to do. I'd go in my man's basement and do goofy freestyles, and we'd call 'em sucker rhymes, and the whole point of the rap was to be as wack as possible and warm up before we actually did songs that we wrote. And that ended up just happening to be the topic that day. I just broke up with a black girl, and the rest of the story I address on the album. I've got a song called "Yellow Brick Road," and it basically explains the whole story from beginning to end, how the tape derived.

How did "The Source" get it?

I don't know. The tapes kinda floated loosely. I never had control of them. It was something we just did and forgot about.

When it came out, were you pissed?

I was angry at myself. I couldn't believe that I said it. The tone that I'm using, you can almost tell that I'm joking, but the words are coming out of my mouth. If there was never no Eminem, it wouldn't be so shocking, but given who I am and what I stand for today, then what else could be Eminem's Achilles' heel?

When the shit came out I owned up to it. I apologized for it. But I can't keep apologizing for something I said when I was sixteen years old. If you wanna ask me about something I said during my career when I got signed as a rapper and knew that I was speaking to a lot of people, then we can talk about that. But until then, shit that I did as a fucking kid — I mean, we've all done stupid shit. Shit that you and your friends might have known was a joke, but had anybody else outside of that heard it, they might have taken it a different way.

In our generation the word "nigga" is used by black and white kids as an expression of love, but even now you won't say it.

Yeah, it's just a word I don't feel comfortable with. It wouldn't sound right coming out of my mouth.

Do you see a similarity between "nigger" and "faggot"? Aren't they the same?

I've never really seen it that way. Growing up, the word faggot was thrown around. The two words were thrown around, they were always thrown around. But growing up, when you said faggot to somebody it didn't necessarily mean they were gay. It was in the sense of, "You fuckin' dick."

But you don't see these two words doing the same thing?

I guess it depends on if you're using it in a derogatory way. Like, if you're using the word faggot like I just said, in the way of calling them a name, that's different than a racial slur to me. Some people may feel different. Some white kids feel comfortable throwing the word around all day. I don't. I'm not saying I've never said the word in my entire life. But now, I just don't say it in casual conversation. It doesn't feel right to come out of my mouth.

Does it bother you when a black man says, "Eminem is my nigga?"

No. If a white kid came up to me and said it, I probably would look at him funny. And if given the time to sit down with him I'd say, "Look, just don't say the word. It's not meant to be used by us. 'Specially if you want something to do with hip-hop."

You've sobered up some. Has that changed your music at all?

Nah. I feel like I still got the same passion for what I do. BD — Before Drugs — and AD — After Drugs.

You used to talk a lot about drugs, and you had a druggie manicness, and I wonder if you'll become more clear-eyed.

Well, I definitely feel more wide-eyed and more aware of my surroundings and what's going on. Going through them days and experimenting and mentioning different drugs, the way that I put it out there, like I got mushrooms and acid and weed, people automatically assumed I was on drugs every time they saw me. Kids would come up to me like, "Yo, Shady, I know you got them 'shrooms!" And I'd be like, "Yo, I'm chillin'." I mean, I went through my little phase, and I just realized it wasn't the thing for me. It wasn't the thing for me before fame, and there's no reason for it to be the thing for me now. Especially since I've reached a certain level of maturity that hopefully includes a happy medium of immaturity.