The Voice of America

But before he became a hero to crabby white teenagers everywhere, and before his testy encounters with Moby and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog -- before, that is, he decided that you catch more listeners with vinegar than with funny -- Eminem was just another rapper doing what rappers always do: begging to be liked. Wasn't that the reason he invented Slim Shady in the first place? He wanted to entertain everybody. It's there in his rhyme flow, in the way he rants a mile a minute, trying to impress us all, like the most insecure guy at the party. Listen to "Just Don't Give a Fuck," where he calls himself "the looniest, zaniest, spontaneous, sporadic/Impulsive thinker, compulsive drinker, addict/Half animal, half man." He sounds as if he's just waiting for someone to offer him a beer and tell him to relax.

He probably wouldn't know how. Eminem is far and away the least laid-back hip-hop star ever, and overachievement has always been part of his appeal. His rise to fame began with a kind of audition -- at the 1997 Rap Olympics MC Battle, in Los Angeles -- and a few years later, he was still rapping like a guy who was out to win a competition. He won over Dr. Dre by freestyling on a radio station, so maybe he figured he could win over listeners the same way.

It was 1999 when The Slim Shady LP came out, and hip-hop was in full "crews-control" mode, thanks to the Wu-Tang Clan and Puff Daddy and Master P and everyone else. Rappers wanted to make us believe it was easy: Put together a big enough army and the money would flow in. By contrast, Eminem was on his best behavior, humble and hardworking. He wanted to be a famous rapper, like the ones he idolized -- you could detect a trace of awe in "Guilty Conscience," one of the best songs from The Slim Shady LP, where he mocks Dr. Dre for being "Mr. N.W.A/Mr. AK-comin'-straight-outta-Compton-y'all-better-make-way."

He was good, even -- or especially -- when he was running his mouth off about how bad he was, ranting about how he had persuaded a college girl to experiment with drugs. Those dirty jokes were his way of proving his sincerity, and his enthusiasm. He was willing to do whatever it took.

In retrospect, it's hard to imagine a better way for the first great white rapper to make his entrance. For two decades, hip-hop had been awash in black stereotypes, and now Eminem was bringing two of the most infamous white stereotypes to life: He was both a crazyass white boy and a hardworking white man. He was nasty without being disrespectful, and his flow was as ridiculous as his videos.

If success made him uncomfortable then, it wasn't because he didn't like having fans but because he knew all the tricks he'd used to pull them in. And so, on The Marshall Mathers LP, he spent more than an hour assessing his own appeal. "Now, because of this blond mop that's on top/And this fucked-up head that I've got/I've gone pop?" Well, yes -- wasn't that the whole idea? Whoever said that "Kim," his bloodcurdling wife-killing narrative, was an affront to women was missing the point. It was an affront to listeners. He was asking us, "Is this what you want?"