What goes up.
So to speak.
Eminem has gained yet another enemy. The entertainer rapped about raping Iggy Azalea in his new song “Vegas” that leaked this week — and she’s not happy about it. The Australian rapper took to Twitter on Thursday, Nov. 20, to respond to the cringe-worthy, controversial lyrics.
"I’m bored of the old men threatening young women as entertainment trend and much more interested in the young women getting $ trend. zzzz," the 24-year-old "Fancy" singer tweeted.
"It’s especially awkward because my 14 year old brother is the biggest eminem fan and now the artist he admired says he wants to rape me. nice!" she continued. "Women in music have the bigger balls anyhow we endure much more harassment and critic."
In his new track, Eminem appears to tell Azalea to put away her rape whistle. “Unless you’re Nicki [Minaj]/grab you by the wrist let’s ski/so what’s it gonna be/put that s—t away Iggy/You don’t wanna blow that rape whistle on me,” the song goes.
The lyrics come just days after Eminem threatened to punch Lana Del Rey in the face in his freestyle rap video “SHADYXV – THE CXVPHER” off his upcoming Shady XV compilation album.
First, and mostly as an aside, having been around since the days when parents thought the Stones were the end of morality on the planet as we knew it, I get a particular smile out of reading Mr. Mathers being referred to as one of "the old men".
Meanwhile, back at the ranch.
Or rap, as the case may be.
The issue here, despite every good indication to the contrary, really isn't so much about morality, sanctity or even quality.
And even though it ostensibly addresses a "cultural ill", it's not even about sociology.
What it's about....is physics.
And what a lot of these young people who fancy themselves as cutting edge "artists" don't seem to grasp.
The automatic, inevitable, unavoidable limit and/or shelf life they put on their own "creativity" with their particular choice of approach.
Theoretically, digging ever deeper into society's psyche on some kind of pseudo-intellectual quest to expose the darker side of man's inhumanity to man.
Or, more often than not, man's inhumanity to woman in the form of misogyny, sexism, gender bias, chauvinism and just plain good old fashioned disrespect.
Oh and, by the way, all of this assumes for the purpose of our discussion here that all of this loftier perspective isn't simply wasted wind, given that the primary and, for that matter, only goal that modern day capitalists like Marshall have is the accumulation of as much money as possible by simply playing to the basest instincts of the lowest common denominator of the listening audience.
Which, of course, is the way likelier scenario.
But, for now, indulge me a little.
Life, being a living, breathing thing is never static.
It's either getting better...or worse.
Happier or sadder.
Healthier or sicker.
Put even more simply (for those who are just joining us from an evening of reality TV).....
It goes up.
Or it goes down.
Eminem, for all of his purported "edginess" and/or "envelope pushing" is obviously seriously lacking in one pretty primary area of awareness.
There's only so much down to get.
Even if the very rock hard bottom of the barrel proves to have be false, there is, at some inevitable point, a very rock hard bottom of the bottom.
The end. Progress concluded.
No. Mo. Go.
Up, meanwhile, is, to the best of our knowledge, limitless.
Now, only the truly naïve' (and maybe Elizabeth Hasselbeck) would believe, for a nano, that art, music, television, movies, novels, etc, etc, should always, and only, reflect the happy, the good, the light, the best, the brightest.
Because, in its most intimate and poignant expressions, art reflects a complete image of who and what we are.
In more ways than one, black can be beautiful.
For example, singer/songwriter Steve Earle once said to me, in an interview, that the whole notion that Nashville music decision makers were always looking for "up-tempo, positive songs" for their performers was essentially bullshit because, in Steve's eloquent turn of phrase....
"....life is not always up-tempo, positive.."
Fair point. And true.
That said, though, only the truly prurient (and maybe Bill Cosby, jury's still out at this writing) would find any real entertainment, let alone artistic, value in the depiction and, through depiction, the implied endorsement of the sexual violation of women.
And if modern day capitalists like Marshal Mathers don't understand that on any level of decency or morality or simple human courtesy, then maybe they can be persuaded from a profit/loss perspective.
As mentioned earlier....there's only so much down to get.
And once you hit bottom, you have no where to go but up.
And if you think that up puts you at risk of losing your street cred, then your only option is to swim around down there at the bottom.
Putting yourself at a not so obvious, but certainly more potentially damaging, risk to your livelihood as a cutting edge "artist".
Being boring.
Kind of like the way Eminem is boring Iggy.
No upside to that at all.
