[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Tiffany Hansen: This is All Of It. I'm Tiffany Hansen in for Alison Stewart. Thanks so much for spending part of your day with us. On today's show, we'll delve into the Harlem Renaissance, which is the subject of a major new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We'll talk about taking a walking tour of some important sites in Harlem. We'll also hear from Todd Haynes, who is nominated in the Best Director category of this weekend's Independent Spirit Awards for his film May December. That's the plan. Let's get started.

[MUSIC - Eminem: My Name Is]

Tiffany Hansen: Today marks exactly 25 years since Eminem released The Slim Shady LP. It was the rapper's second full length album, but really his mainstream debut. It hit the album charts at number two right behind another classic released 25 years ago today, TLC's FanMail.

[MUSIC - TLC: No Scrubs]

Tiffany Hansen: The following year, Slim Shady went up against another legendary February 23rd release for the Grammy for Best Rap Album, Things Fall Apart by the Roots.

[MUSIC - The Roots ft. Erykah Badu: You Got Me]

Tiffany Hansen: Eminem came out on top in that Grammy category. It was a streak that he'd keep up for his next two albums as well. By the end of the year 2000, The Slim Shady LP had gone quadruple platinum launching Eminem as a major force in rap and pop music. In 2002, he starred in the autobiographical drama 8 Mile. In 2009, 10 years after the release of The Slim Shady LP, Billboard named him Artist of the Decade.

Joining me now to talk about the legacy of The Slim Shady LP is Noah Callahan-Bever, former editor-in-chief at Complex Magazine, former executive vice president at Def Jam, and current co-CEO of the multimedia company Idea Generation. Hi, Noah.

Noah Callahan-Bever: Hi there. How are you doing?

Tiffany Hansen: Great. Thanks. All right, listeners, we would also love for you to join this conversation. Where were you when The Slim Shady LP came out in 1999? Do you remember listening to it? Where were you? How did it sound to you? How did you connect with it? What was your favorite track and has that held up? How do you rank it among Eminem's albums? You can call us. You can text us. 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can reach out to us on all the socials @allofitwnyc.

Noah, just to get into a little bit of the background on the LP. It was Eminem's major debut, as I said, but it was actually his second album. He released the album Infinite in 1996. Just lay a picture for us of where he was on the trajectory of his career when Slim Shady came out.

Noah Callahan-Bever: Well, in 1996, he put out the Infinite album. That is a record that there maybe are like 2,000 units pressed of in total. It went absolutely nowhere. Unless you lived in the Detroit metro area, you were completely unaware of his existence. The following year, 1997, he put out The Slim Shady EP, which got him a write up in The Source in the Unsigned Hype column. His now manager, Paul Rosenberg, brought vinyl of the single Just Don't Give an F to Fat Beats. That is where his real discovery from the hip-hop audience started.

Then around the same time, he started coming to New York and doing underground records with people like the Outsiders, Scam, Shabaam Sahdeeq, et cetera. Once he started working that underground circuit, he very, very quickly became one of the fan favorites.

Tiffany Hansen: I think I read that was the only EP he's ever put out. Is that right?

Noah Callahan-Bever: Yes.

Tiffany Hansen: It is?

Noah Callahan-Bever: I think so.

Tiffany Hansen: It was also the introduction of Slim Shady his basically alter ego. Is that how you would describe that?

Noah Callahan-Bever: Yes. If you listen to Infinite, he is rapping very similar to AZ and Nas in his style. He is very chipper and upbeat for most of the record, having just had a daughter and looking at life's endless possibilities as a burgeoning rap star. Things did not go as planned. By the spring of 1997, he found himself with his back quite against the wall financially, professionally.

In a moment of real duress, he conjured this character, Slim Shady, who had absolutely nothing to lose and was ready to say the most unhinged things that are antisocial, and most people would keep bottled in some part of their head. That struck a chord. The outlandishness and the shockingness, and the scandalousness of those rhymes, combined with real technical proficiency just resonated with the audience. He went again from being a virtual unknown even regionally, to up there with Mos Def as probably the hottest underground prospect in 1998.

Tiffany Hansen: I do want to get into more how it captured the attention not only of us, the public, but also people in the business in a second. I do want to just for a second go back to that Infinite album that you said very few people outside of Detroit have heard, just to understand how that album was so different from Slim Shady. Obviously, there was this character but thematically also the lyrics and themes he was touching on were quite different.

Noah Callahan-Bever: Yes. That record is the work of a person in their early 20s who really feels they have an unusual gift and it is going to take them to incredible places. Again, he was a new father. His relationship with his baby's mother at the time was in a good place. I think he was really feeling quite optimistic about how this all would play out.

Of course, it's hard for people to understand when you talk about it in 2024, but in 1996, the likelihood of a white rapper succeeding, first of all, credibly, but even commercially at that point was quite improbable. I think he very quickly found that there was very little appetite for what he was cooking up, and found himself dejected and frustrated, and in a part of the country that has very little connections within the music industry, so very hard to network or make inroads with people.

Obviously, if you listen to the record, he also was doing quite a bit of a cornucopia of drugs at that point in his life arguably to cope with this spectrum of emotion.

Tiffany Hansen: Noah, I want to bring our listeners into the conversation. Richard in Brooklyn. Good morning, Richard.

Richard: Hi. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Longtime listener, first time caller.

Tiffany Hansen: Welcome.

Richard: Noah. What's up? This is Richard [unintelligible 00:08:50]. What's good?

Noah Callahan-Bever: Oh, [unintelligible 00:08:51]. What's up, man?

Richard: All right. Great to hear you on the show. Just to answer the question. My first experience from hearing Eminem was through Stretch and Bobbito's show on KCR. Hearing his voice as a high schooler going to school in the city, young Black male just thirsty appetite for hip-hop, I just never heard anything like Eminem at the time.

I never really even questioned the content at the time. It was just like, "This is rap. This is edgy. This is crazy lyricism that I'd never heard before." Yes, I was somewhat exposed to Infinite. Also, his name rang bells through the Rap Olympics coming in I guess second place, I guess, if I'm correct. Just followed his career through the ages. I also matured and then immatured [chuckles] as music and youth does to us as listeners and fans of hip-hop.

Yes, Eminem was definitely an influential person. I definitely went to the first signing of Fat Beats.

Tiffany Hansen: Noah, in preparation for this, of course, I went poking around the internet and I saw a lot of comments very much like Richard's. It meant so much to me at such a critical time in my life. How do you respond when you see those comments, when you hear that kind of thing from somebody like Richard?

Noah Callahan-Bever: I think that the interesting thing about Eminem as an artist is he kicked open the door with the technical virtuosity that he brings to the table with this-- Then he rode, and I think to Richard's point, a precedent of shocking rap. If you think about Big L Devil's Son, or Nas "I went to hell for snuffing Jesus", there was a precedent of young upstart rappers saying titillating and edgy things in order to capture the attention.

I think he came in with that, but then, I would say that Em was able to establish an emotional connection with the audience through songs like Rock Bottom. I'm trying to remember what the slower record that's on the low down-- not low down. There's a third song on the first single that's a little bit more introspective as well. He was candid about his own insecurities and frankly, about the turmoil within his life in a way that not a lot of artists in the genre, at least, were in that moment.

Obviously, Tupac, who is among Marshall's biggest influences, was very straightforward about that. In the more lyrical canon of hip-hop, it's been always much more about bravado and chest beating, and again, technical proficiency. The fact that he was able to marry those things, I think grabbed listeners by the teeth with this visceral aesthetic, and then humanized the story in a way that people like myself and [unintelligible 00:12:32] could really connect with in a human way where we felt personally invested in his narrative.

We know his mom is Debbie, and we know Kim is his baby's mother, and we know Hailie is the daughter, and Alaina is the stepdaughter that he's adopted. He really opened up emotionally about his world and painted, I think, a very coherent picture of the trials and tribulations he was going through. That kind of candor just connects with people in a very palpable and visceral way.

Tiffany Hansen: We are talking with Noah Callahan-Bever about the anniversary of the release of The Slim Shady LP by Eminem. Listeners, we would like to invite you into this conversation. Where were you when you heard The Slim Shady LP? Do you remember listening to it? How did it resonate with you at that time, and does it still resonate that same way today, 25 years later?

212-433-WNYC, that's 212-433-9692. You can call us at that number, you can text us at that number, and of course, you can find us on all of the socials, @allofitwnyc. I want to hear, you mentioned Rock Bottom, so I just want to hear just a little bit of that.

[MUSIC - Eminem: Rock Bottom]

Ayo

This song is dedicated

To all the happy people

All the happy people who have real nice lives

And have no idea what it's like to be broke as fuck

I feel like I'm walking a tightrope without a circus net

Poppin' Percocet, I'm a nervous wreck

I deserve respect but I work a sweat

Tiffany Hansen: Noah, when you hear that now, it's easy to understand why it will resonate with some folks. There's a real storytelling that we hear in his work, especially in that song, I think. I want your reaction as well.

Noah Callahan-Bever: No. Again, I think that the bravado and machismo that is so foundational in hip-hop is obviously one of the major selling points, and probably why the music resonates and over-indexes with young men. Again, I think that the real sleight of hand that Eminem brought to the audience was mixing that hyperbolic, hyper-masculinity with this absolute candor around his own insecurities and his own self-loathing.

Again, if you think about what rap was popular in 1998, very little of it had centered that kind of insecurity or that lack of confidence. I think that he was willing to explore those ideas and those themes, and those feelings, again, just really surprised listeners and demonstrated that there was much more there than this cartoony, hyper-violent, ironic, humorous character that he had brought to the world with My Name Is for example.

Tiffany Hansen: Right. Let's listen to My Name Is when we get back, but we're going to take a quick break. You're listening to All Of It here on WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hansen in for Alison Stewart.

[music]

Tiffany Hansen: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hansen in for Alison Stewart. We're talking about Eminem's Slim Shady LP, the anniversary of that, of course. Today, we're talking with Noah Callahan-Bever about that. Noah, let's just hear that little clip again. I mentioned we would hear a little bit of My Name Is just again. One, just tiny bit.

[MUSIC - Eminem: My Name Is]

Hi, my name is, what? My name is, who?

My name is, chka-chka, Slim Shady

Hi, my name is, huh? My name is, what?

My name is, chka-chka, Slim Shady

Tiffany Hansen: There's an introduction. Pretty great introduction to him for a lot of people who hadn't heard him and to the character, his alter ego, Slim Shady. Before we talk a little bit more about that, Noah, I want to bring in a listener here. We have Eileen in Weehawken. Hi, Eileen. Good morning.

Eileen: Hi. More and more is flooding back as I hear the conversation. The first thing that came to my mind, I was one of the clowns and residents at The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. We used to be there through the Big Apple Circus Clown Care unit, now still a presence through Healthy Humor Inc., which are pediatric clowns.

Anyway, at the beginning of each session, each department and area would give an introduction to the campers for that week. Often, there was a song in the zeitgeist. We used, of course by way of introduction, My Name Is and whatever the name. A, it was very modular. The first memory that came is a tribute to the founding medical director who co-founded the camp with Paul Newman.

Some people know the camp because of Paul Newman, but Howard Pearson, who was very game to participate with the clowns and stuff, one of our introductions maybe a staff closing or staff opening, the venerable major pediatric doctor, tons of research and elevation of awareness of sickle cell and work on that. Anyway, Doc Pearson was working Slim Shady with us, so we were all, My Name Is, and he stiffly, "My Name Is, My Name Is Doc Pearson." Anyway, that's the first thing.

I also remembered I had the single, and I must have bought it at Sounds on St. Mark's Place, either the CD or tape single. Anyway, this is a great recall. Scrubs was also a song of the summer, that summer when you played that.

Tiffany Hansen: Of course, yes. Eileen, thanks so much for the call. I can imagine, Noah, that that's an outcome that Eminem never predicted for that song. [chuckles]

Noah Callahan-Bever: Absolutely. I'm sure that he would be tickled hearing that. Yes. I think when recording that, I don't think he had any sense of how ubiquitous it would ultimately become, and yes, the various moments it would play in people's lives,

Tiffany Hansen: You can never really know as an artist how your art is going to connect with every individual, I suppose. Right?

Noah Callahan-Bever: Certainly. I think that song though is so interesting and honestly such a testament to, of course, Eminem's genius as a lyricist, but also to Dr. Dre's genius as a producer. Oftentimes, and particularly in that moment in the late '90s as hip-hop was blossoming commercially, there was a real challenge in how to take people who are excellent rappers, which is inherently a very complicated, dense format of songwriting, and translate that into huge commercial smashes.

I've always found Dre's choice of slowing down the BPM so that Eminem could clearly articulate all of his jokes and all of his punchlines in a digestible way that not only could rap fans hear and understand and appreciate, but also any random person listening to pop radio as well, and to be able to do that on a song that is completely uncompromised in any other commercial sensibility.

There's no R&B chorus. There's nothing about it that is not roots hip-hop. It is a sample, it is a loop. He just added drums. Again, he took what Eminem was so great at, which was telling these absurdist jokes, and slowed it down and created a forum for him to really shine at exactly what he did, which again, was totally antithetical to everything that was moving the needle at urban radio during the time, and also very not obvious as a vehicle for a super lyrical rapper.

Tiffany Hansen: Well, Eminem really idolized Dre and listened to NWA like a lot of his peers were at the time. I can imagine that having his attention was really transformative just for him as an artist and career-wise, and in terms of his own musicality.

Noah Callahan-Bever: To speak to that, the story as it goes is that the two of them got into the studio and in 24 hours recorded My Name Is, Guilty Conscience, and Role Model in essentially one and a half sessions. That Em was just so primed and ready to go that every track that Dre threw on, he just went to work.

Tiffany Hansen: When we think about their collaboration, we can't help but think about the track Guilty Conscience. Let's hear a little bit of that.

[MUSIC - Eminem ft. Dre: Guilty Conscience]

Alright, stop (Huh?)

Now before you walk in the door of this liquor store

And try to get money out the drawer

You better think of the consequence (Who are you?)

I’m your motherfuckin’ conscience

That’s nonsense

Go in, gaffle the money, and run to one of your aunt’s cribs

And borrow a damn dress and one of her blond wigs

(Can I borrow this?)

Tell her you need a place to stay

Tiffany Hansen: Dre, Eminem, two sides of the coin, devil-angel. Talk us through that track a little bit.

Noah Callahan-Bever: Again, I think this is the genius of Dre looking at, "I have a super rapping talent here. How do I commodify this and lean into the things about Eminem's songwriting that make him special?" That is his ability to do voices, his ability to write in linear narratives. Again, there's this irony because here's Dr. Dre who is coming from NWA is not necessarily known as the friendliest guy in hip-hop, but we're going to position him as the angel on the shoulder of these three different characters while Marshall is playing the devil.

Then he gets to craft three very antisocial scenarios, and then have these two different voices coaching the protagonist as they move through these narratives. Again, it's very meta because obviously, Slim Shady as a character is the devil in your brain thinking the antisocial thoughts that we all don't say out loud. Then on top of that, now Dr. Dre, the guy that made The Chronic who has said some of the most randy things committed 2-inch reel, is now actually the one who is the voice of reason.

Tiffany Hansen: It's been compared to that track specifically, but also some of his other tracks on The Slim Shady LP have been called skits. They're little vignettes, little skits. We have a text here that says Eminem's music videos were a huge part of his popularity for me as a millennial. They were almost skits, more like what we see online now. He was definitely ahead of his time. Would you classify him as being ahead of his time?

Noah Callahan-Bever: Absolutely. I think that Em really opened a door for extremely popular hip-hop that did not fit the prototypical urban and crossover radio format. If you think about the songs that were working for artists like Jay-Z and Nas in that moment in the late '90s, they were all engineered towards the radio and towards the club. Then of course, they would have street records to bolster, be the credible play and to appeal to their core fans.

Eminem came and had completely [unintelligible 00:26:37] strange style production that was unique that no one else could rap over, and again, these high concept records, but figured out with Dre how to both from a songwriting standpoint, but also from a marketing standpoint turn these into extraordinary commercial hits.

I think that really that opened doors that allowed people like Kanye West and even Tyler, the Creator years later, or even Drake frankly, in very tangentially related ways to exist in a multi-lane highway that is commercial rap.

Tiffany Hansen: Before we leave Dre too far behind here, I want to take a call from Tony in Windsor Terrace. Hi Tony.

Tony: Hey. quick question. That story about the initial collaboration was so inspiring, I'd just love to hear more about that relationship and how the two worked together, and specifically leading up to the amazing Dr. Dre album, 2001 Chronic II. Just want to hear a little bit more about that collab and how those two developed a duo or a partnership, I suppose.

Tiffany Hansen: Thank you, Tony. I hear you describe it. It was pretty magical.

Noah Callahan-Bever: The story goes that there was a young man that worked at Interscope Records, Dean Geistlinger, who was either an intern or a very low-level A&R admin. He had gotten a copy of The Slim Shady EP and passed it on to Jimmy Iovine and said, "Hey, this kid is incredibly gifted as a rapper. I don't know what we do with him, but he's incredible."

Jimmy Iovine had the brilliant idea of, "Hey, let me call up Dre and see if he digs this." They sent the cassette to Dre, and it happened that Eminem was in LA that weekend recording on The Wake Up Show, Sway Calloway's radio show. He did a freestyle over I believe a-- I can't remember, maybe a Biggie beat on the radio, and then got a call that Dr. Dre was listening to you on the radio and would love to get in the studio with you.

Within a couple of days, they got together and ended up knocking out those three records in basically a weekend, and Dre signed him to Aftermath. That ultimately really was the beginning of Dre's second act in music because once Em was a success, that set up the 2001. A lot of those sessions from 2001 were recorded either during The Slim Shady LP sessions or slightly thereafter.

I can remember meeting up with Em a few weeks before The Slim Shady LP came out and he played me Forgot about Dre, and what's the difference from 2001 with him doing all of the parts, of course. Explaining, "We're making The Chronic II. Dre's coming back, et cetera, et cetera." Their success just piggybacked one another, and of course, coming to a zenith in 2003 with the signing of 50 Cent, and the two, Em and Dre, collaborating to elevate 50 to the pole position.

Tiffany Hansen: Noah, before we let you go, I want to get your reaction on one last track here. This is called As The World Turns.

[MUSIC - Eminem: As The World Turns]

(I don’t know) Yes, man

(Why this world keeps turning) As the world turns

(‘Round and ’round) We all experience things in life

(But I wish it would stop and let me off right now)

Trials and tribulations

(I don’t know) That we all must go through

(Why this world keeps turning) When someone wants to test us

(‘Round and ’round) When someone tries our patience

(But I wish it would stop and let me off right now)

[Verse 1]

I hang with a bunch of hippies and wacky tobacco planters

Who swallow lit roaches and light up like jack-o-lanterns

Tiffany Hansen: What do we learn about him in this track?

Noah Callahan-Bever: It's funny, this record is particularly memorable to me. I was sent to Burbank in the spring of 1998 to interview Eminem for Blaze Magazine. At the time, he was recording The Slim Shady LP. I remember pulling up at the little strip mall studio that he was recording in, and seeing a parked rental car, a Lincoln Continental with music blasting out of it.

As I approached the car, I see that Eminem and Royce are sitting in the car. They see me, recognize that I'm clearly the rap guy from Blaze that they were looking to meet up with. Invite me in, and they're playing the rough mix of this song. The narrative in this is a hyperviolent, cartoonish, but incredibly grotesque and edgy story of a guy and a girl getting into this epic fight.

I was so unsettled by the nature of the content and the jokes. It reminded me of being nine years old and getting Nasty as They Wanna Be, the 2 Live Crew album, and listening to the nursery rhymes song, and feeling both completely enchanted and also disgusted. Just thinking, the visceralness with which I am physically reacting to this music, is so unlike most things that you will hear.

Also, at the time I thought of Eminem as an underground rapper because all of his stuff had been very dirty, and anti-commercial. Here he is with this melodic chorus, and this very lush production. The combination of it just, I exited that car thinking, "This guy is going to sell a million records. There's no way that people are not going to talk about this. What he just played to me is insane, literally insane."

Tiffany Hansen: That's a good place to leave it. Noah Callahan-Bever is the former editor-in-chief at Complex Magazine, former executive vice president at Def Jam, and the current co-CEO of the multimedia company, Idea Generation. Noah, thanks so much for your time today. We appreciate it.

Noah Callahan-Bever: Absolutely. Thanks for having me. 

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