Marshall Mathers AKA Eminem shocked the movie business with his major motion picture debut 8 Mile. Who would have guessed that a movie with a modest budget, with an unproven rapper front and center, without any mega-buck actor support would have an opening weekend of 54 million dollars. I didn’t see it coming. As big as Eminem is in the music world, I figured a 20 million dollar opening at best, and a quick move to DVD.

Like the smokin’ hot selling The Eminem Show (7x platinum since summer 02) there is a limited bonus disc. Instead of the DVD that graced the Show a 6 track CD sampler is offered here. It’s not terribly exciting, only the Eminem track Stimulate a track that swells with deep throbbing bass and delicate guitar samples, shines. The rest is tired, and barely registers with this seasoned rap fan. Eminem’s latest prodigy 50 cent shows up on both discs. And to get to the point, after hearing the guy, 50 cent is aptly named, that’s just about what he’s worth. Maybe the under 18 crowd will dig this bonus material.

After three multi-platinum albums, Eminem actually tones down his seething, vicious hatred of his mother, and Kim Mathers. For the first time, the tormented white rapper focuses on the theme of the 8 Mile movie, his struggle as an unknown, dead broke rapper. This is the first time Eminem actually recounts choking on stage, suffering from writer's block and all the struggles of being white in a black dominated profession.

The 8 Mile soundtrack is about one quarter Eminem material, with the remainder being rounded out by a handful of mostly big name rappers. The guitar and piano laden Lose Yourself, a pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of track, is crisp in comparison to the vast number of bottom heavy rap tracks. Love Me is a mean spirited track without any real direction. Incredibly catchy, yet blasting away in no particular direction, Love me takes aim at female groupies and the media, entertainers like Ashanti, R Kelly, and Lil Kim are also victims of this random gunfire.

Eminem moves back to the focus on the title track 8 Mile with some strugglin’ rapper story telling. With a fast, almost rolling beat, Eminem’s tongue slices in-between the drum beats while he tells the world it was either rap and succeed, or die. The remainder of the album is tough going for the other rappers and the fans. Most of the non Eminem material is lackluster, and boring. It’s like Seeing Sam Kinison live, and then seeing Jackie the Joke man at Zany’s. Performances by Obie Trice, and Eminem’s posse D12 rarely do anything original, or catchy.

Jay-Z pays homage with the title 8 Miles and runnin’ from N.W.A’s 100 miles and runnin’. Too bad Jay-Z delivers an almost embarrassingly bad performance here. This track like many others is painfully boring and the reason CD players have a track skip button. Xzibit does just a little better on Spit Shine. But after bragging about how bad he is and that he’ll have a long life in the rap game, I can’t help but yawn. Whatever happened to brilliant Xzibit creations like The Foundation from his album At the Speed of Life?

Eminem keeps the ship from going down on Rap Game. Eminem has done everything to stay fresh and clever, and things are no different here. After hearing Eminem rap backwards on D12’s DevilsNight I figured he tried everything once. But here, after going on with some word play concerning switch blades, Eminem slowly morphes his rap from his surgeon like precision into pig Latin. Eminem manages to rap about absolutely nothing and embarrass the rest of his cohorts. The only thing left for Eminem to do is rap in Spanish.

Macy Gray delivers the goods with her raspy, girlish vocals on Time of my life. NAS, 50 cent, Boomkat, and Young Zee all deliver performances that bore me to tears. The only other rappers that seemed to hold their own here are Gangstarr on Battle. With his unique, unmistakable vocals and jazz influenced sound, Guru keeps things interesting, ditto for Rakim on R.A.K.I.M. And finally, Eminem manages to wrap up this mess with Rabbit Run a fear filled, writer's block confessional. Eminem continues to show that his ability to create flows, and rhythm with his funky verbal cadence continues to evolve. Most other rappers sound clunky in comparison, and I find it difficult to tolerate them with every day that passes.

With all the mediocre “been there done that” rap that abounds, I can only hand the 8 Mile soundtrack three stars. This soundtrack has too many holes, and when light does shine through them, it usually belongs to Eminem. Bottom line, Eminem fans want to know if they should part with their hard earned cash for a soundtrack that is barely a quarter Eminem Material. Yo creo que si. No it doesn’t rhyme, but I figured I’d beat Eminem to the punch.


-Tony



Recommended: Yes