Bibliography

[1] - Origins of rap music
[2] - Origins of rap music 2 
[3] - Odd Future Wikipedia
[4] - NME OF Tape Vol.2 Review
[5] - Odd Future BBC Interview
[6] - Uses and Gratifications theory - presentation
[7] - Rolling Stone OF Tape Vol.2 Review
[8] - Yonkers review
[9] - Cultivation theory
[10] - Eminem - King of Hip-hop 
[11]- NME Album review - Marshall LP
[12] - The Advocate - Eminem
[13] - Kim -Rolling stone
[14] - Artists Opinions on Odd Future
[15] - The Nielsen company

The Nielsen Company

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120105005547/en/Nielsen-Company-Billboard%E2%80%99s-2011-Music-Industry-Report

Rolling Stones - Kim

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/the-marshall-mathers-lp-20000706

Lupe Fiasco BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/qg28

NME Marshall Mathers LP

http://www.nme.com/reviews/eminem/2338

The advocate

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aWMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=the+marshall+mathers+lp+lyrics&source=bl&ots=ADXfXXCNBb&sig=dGoMTFsfbDBUVDct2M5KECoofZc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=H2AbUMvlDcSEjAKEq4FI&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=the%20marshall%20mathers%20lp%20lyrics&f=false

cultivation theory wiki

 The purpose of the Cultural Indicators project was to identify and track the 'cultivated' effects of television on viewers. They were "concerned with the effects of television programming (particularly violent programming) on the attitudes and behaviors of the American public.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultivation_theory

Yonkers review

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/12112-yonkers/

The Uses and Gratifications theory - Presentation

http://www.slideshare.net/zlorhenley/uses-and-gratifications-theory-6933502#btnPrevious

Origins of rap music 2

The history of rap music or hip hop music begins in the early '70s. Most music buffs know hip hop music history has a rich past with its roots in several related music styles. If you look at history rap music, it clearly shows its origins and influences in the popular African American and Latino street culture of New York City and surrounding areas.

In the '70s, hip hop music history began with the highly original and innovative approach New York DJs started using to highlight the amazing percussion riffs and other rhythmic drum breaks in popular funk and disco music played in clubs. At this point in history rap music and the growing club scene started recognizing the power and importance of big name DJs in their ability to draw big crowds. The rise of the DJ clearly parallels the rise of rap music in both the past and present history of rap music.

The history of rap music, as hip hop music history students know all too well, also saw the birth of a new expanded function for the MC. One of the jobs of the MC (or emcee) was to introduce the DJ and the performing rap artists to the audience. Keeping the guests happy and excited also fell upon the shoulders of the MC. Clearly, talented MCs with cool, charismatic stage presence became instrumental to the growing popularity of hip hop music and rap artists. The better MCs entertained the audience before, during and after the performers came on stage.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090217090258AACB32k

Without a doubt, the history of rap music or hip hop music can be seen in these humble beginnings of the DJ and MC - along with the rise of rap artists, breakdancers and taggers (graffiti artists) - all part of the New York City scene in the early '70s.

Interestingly, it wasn't until the late 1970s before the history of rap music showed its extraordinary and expanding commercial power and started its meteoric rise as a popular music style in America and soon throughout the world. By the '90s, a sub-genre known as gangsta rap took America by storm. Its controversial lyrics, with its focus on street violence, sex and drugs, all increased its allure to America's youth and quickly crossed over into all socio-economic groups. Despite its controversial aspects, or possibly because of it, rap music (as hip hop music history will show) continued its run away rise into the new millenium. In fact, today hip hop music is one of the fastest growing and most popular forms of music in America or the world.

The history of rap music would not be complete without a look at the performers who make it all possible - the rap artists. Most rap music typically includes one or more rappers who often rap about their own personal life stories, important events in their lives, or social problems they wish to make a public statement about. Rap songs can also represent romanticized or fictional themes. The sky is the limit. Musically, rap songs usually have a strong rhythmic aspect with the spoken lyrics emulating the intense rhythm of the beat. Rap songs are known to make use of many poetic techniques including simple word rhymes and alliteration.

The history of rap music also shows that the instrumental track or beat performed by the DJ often includes the rhythms and beat "samplings" from popular and/or well-known funk, rock, or soul songs. These sampled sounds and rhythms are synthesized, integrated, and reinvented with original twists by the performers.

Two other highly popular aspects of rap music that saw their rapid growth into the American mainstream are breakdancing and tagging (graffiti). Breakdancers and taggers are now stars in their own right with loyal followers and fans throughout the world. Annual breakdancing competitions are now very popular even in countries throughout Europe and Asia. The history of rap music can be considered relatively new, yet it is clearly a powerful influence in today's music world. Indeed, the musical influence of New York City African American and Latino culture is now as pervasive worldwide as fast food hamburger chains.

Odd Future - Violence on stage

http://thedeadhub.com/2011/10/31/odd-future-from-their-violent-lyrics-to-real-life/

Odd Future is a rap group lead by Tyler, The Creator. The band is noted for their violent lyrics against women. It’s song lyrics from “Bitch Suck Dick” that demonstrate Tyler’s lyrical violence against women. One of the opening lines of the song states, “By the way, we do punch bitches.”  For Tyler he is quite serious and proved yesterday that he’s a man of his lyrical word along with the band.

Yesterday on the last day of The Voodoo Experience, Odd Future took the stage and it started with a bang, actually more with a punch. Tyler arrived onstage and proclaimed his hatred for photographers. He started exclaiming that fans pay big money to be there and to be upfront, so the music photographers (aka the press) shouldn’t be in the barricade. When other members of the group joined in on the anti-photographer rant, the crowd started to eat it up. Left Brain, Vyron Dalyan Turner,  jumped down onto the speakers in front of the stage and threw water on the photographers’ cameras. He kicked a video camera over, and said, “We are going to fuck you up!” He then looked directly at Amy Harris from The First 3 Songs and said, “I hate you bitch!” and proceeded to slap her and knock her camera over. “Everybody was in shock,” Amy tells me. “Some photographers left as Tyler was saying ‘We are going to Fuck you up’ and some left as he (Left Brain) slapped me.”

After the tirade on the photo pit, the band proceeded with their set and the photographers were escorted out of the pit. Amy says that she is not pressing charges against the band.

Amy is an experienced photographer, and she currently writes for  Cincinnati’s CityBeat, The First 3 Songs, and for us here at The Dead Hub, and is represented by Corbis Images. She’s been covering live concerts for 4 years and she tells me, “I’ve seen them (artists) throw water and complain, but never violence.”

The Youtube video has very poor sound quality. Will keep our eyes out for better ones if available. 

The Telegraph - Violence in Rap Music

Rap music 'glamorises gun violence'

By Sally Pook

12:01AM GMT 07 Jan 2003

David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, condemned violent gangster rap music as "appalling" yesterday and said anyone who glamorised gun violence in music should be made aware of what was acceptable and what was not.

He said on BBC Radio 2 that there was a link between the drug culture and music. "This is not just about guns and violence.

"We need to talk to the record producers, to the distributors, to those who are actually engaged in the music business about what is and is not acceptable."

His comments echoed earlier remarks by Kim Howells, the culture minister, who said the time had come to stand up to the "idiots" of rap culture.

During a radio discussion on the killing of Latisha Shakespear and Charlene Ellis, two teenagers in Birmingham, he attacked British rappers, including So Solid Crew. Two members of So Solid Crew have faced firearms charges in the past year. Singer Asher D was jailed for 18 months for possessing a gun.

Related Articles

• Rap singer faces jail over gun 
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"Idiots like the So Solid Crew are glorifying gun culture and violence. It is something new. It is very worrying and we ought to stand up and say it."

John Denham, the Home Office minister, said the Government must challenge the rap music attitude that it was "cool" to carry guns. He acknowledged that rap music lyrics shocked and disturbed many people.

"I very much doubt that banning music would be likely to get us the ear of those very young people that we are trying to influence."

Diane Abbott, the Labour MP whose constituency covers Hackney where a gun siege has been taking place since Boxing Day, said the music was a symptom rather than a cause of gun culture.

"I think it would be good if these rap artists preached a different lesson with their lyrics but let's not pretend that ending gun criminality on the streets of Hackney or Birmingham is as simple as getting people to sing different songs," she said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1418104/Rap-music-glamorises-gun-violence.html

Artists Opinions on Odd Future

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLqSIZ3EaMg

'Odd Future is Dope' - Dom Kennedy
'They Don't fuck with Nobody' - The Game
'Got alot of Potential' - Lupe Fiasco
'I don't like what they're doing man, way to much negativetity'- Hopsin

Yonkers Youtube Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSbZidsgMfw&feature=g-vrec

Rolling Stone OF Tape Vol.2 Review

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/the-o-f-tape-volume-2-20120322

Here's the thing about the L.A. rap collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, hip-hop's preeminent self-styled radicals, provocateurs, and shock-artists: They're not radical, they're not provocative, and they're not shocking. Free-floating male hormonal rage, Odd Future's stock-in-trade, has been an engine of pop music for more than half a century. Their id-unleashed shtick – all the pill-popping and gore and nihilism—is evidence of an Eminem Complex that begins with OF's leader Tyler, the Creator, and trickles down to the group's other members. And of course, there's the relentless misogyny: "Please hit your knees/My dick won't suck itself/If it wasn't for my cock/You would have bad health," rhymes OF member Taco. That's not radical, that's conventional: the stupidest, most banal way to raise hackles.

Yet Odd Future are mesmerizing. The O.F. Tape Volume 2 has a fizzy energy that elevates it above its limitations. In part, it's the music. Tyler, The Creator is an imaginative soundscaper whose beats take in everything from crunk to Nineties underground hip-hop. "Lean" combines mosquito-whine buzzes with an eerily minimalist beat worthy of the Neptunes; "Analog 2" is sultry swirl of synths and soul crooning interrupted by nearly twelve seconds of dead silence. But it's cacophony that keeps your ears piqued: all those peculiar voices, boasting, storytelling, signifying, bellyaching. There's Tyler, sharper and wittier than on his 2011 solo album, Goblin; there's Hodgy Beats, who breaks out here, taking the prize for best punchlines; in the ten-minute-plus posse track "Oldie"; there's even a cameo by Earl Sweatshirt, possibly OF's best rapper, an 18-year-old who had moved from L.A. to Samoa, where he was enrolled in a program for at-risk youth. And of course there's the group's resident grownup, rising R&B star Frank Ocean, who takes a lovely solo turn on the Stevie Wonder-ish "White."

At their best, OF, like early Wu-Tang, are a thrilling regional act, a bunch of whip-smart black hipsters whose worldview is grounded in their corner of sun-baked  southern California – a place as weirdly its own planet as Wu's Shaolin. In "P," Hodgy Beats boasts about his gun-slinging by invoking California Assemblyman and Tea Party member Tim Donnelly, who was arrested at an airport in San Bernadino, CA., when a Colt .45 was found in his carry-on luggage. "Tea parties are the shit, .40 mags by the stones," raps Hodgy. "I'm fighting for gun rights to shoot a nigga in his dome." That's the best kind of shock: taking a cliché and turning it into something fresh, new, odd.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/the-o-f-tape-volume-2-20120322#ixzz2C6SKBcj4

Eminem - King of hip-hop

Eminem Named King Of Hip-Hop By Rolling Stone

Em beat the likes of Jay-Z, Weezy & Kanye West to the title...

11:33, Wednesday, 17 August 2011

Eminem has beaten the likes of Jay-Z andKanye West to be crowned as the new King of Hip-Hop by Rolling Stone magazine.

The publication, who previously named Lady GaGa as their Queen of Pop back in June, used a variety a methods to reveal Em as their King, analysing digital song sales, radio airplay, YouTube views and social media presence to comply the list.

Rolling Stone also looked at R&B and hip-hop chart placings, tour revenues, award show wins and reviews from a range of critics in order to name Eminem as their winner.

The Love The Way You Like hitmaker came out on top with a score of 1, 169, while Lil Wayne came second with a respectable 1,134 points.

Drake was placed at No.3 with 1,020 - beating the likes of Kanye West and Jay-Z who scored 784 and 666 to complete the top five.

Speaking of Drizzy's high position, Rolling Stone claimed: "If third-place Drake's commanding lead on the song charts had been even more dominant (which is hard to imagine), he could well have taken the title – a massive upset considering the brevity of his rap career."

They added: "As it is, Drake's strong finish, more than 200 points above now-veteran Kanye West, is a testament to his current omnipresence. With his second album due later this year, he's got a shot at stealing the title by 2012."

Nicki Minaj also featured in the list at No.6, fending off tough competition from the likes ofRick Ross, Ludacris and Snoop Dogg.

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCUQFjAA&url=http://www.mtv.co.uk/news/eminem/328683-eminem-king-of-hip-hop-jay-z-kanye-lil-wayne-drake&ei=tRuUUMjfO8ua1AX3iIHQDQ&usg=AFQjCNGVkPCMnfuAUPtaXpBWuDBiPqlKSg&sig2=45tf-mn5AJ4KyGNWPiTNhw

Lyrical Content - Marshall Mathers LP

Lyrical content

The Marshall Mathers LP contains more autobiographical themes in comparison to The Slim Shady LP.^[28] Much of the album is spent addressing his rise to fame and attacking those who criticized his previous album. Other themes include his relationship with his family, most notably his mother and Kim Mathers, his former wife.^[29] The Marshall Mathers LP was released in both clean and explicit versions. However, some lyrics of the album are censored even on its explicit version. Some songs are censored because of events surrounding the album's release, mostly theColumbine High School Massacre. Unlike Eminem's debut, The Slim Shady LP, The Marshall Mathers LP is more introspective in its lyrics and less of the Slim Shady persona. Its lyrical style has been described as horrorcore,^[2][3] with Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing that the album's lyrics "[blur] the distinction between reality and fiction, humor and horror, satire and documentary".^[30]

Most songs cover Eminem's childhood struggles and family issues, involving his mother ("Kill You"),^[31] the relationship struggles with his wife ("Kim"),^[31] his struggles with his superstardom and expectations ("Stan", "I'm Back", & "Marshall Mathers"),^[31] his return and effect on the music industry ("Remember Me?", "Bitch Please II"),^[31] his drug use ("Drug Ballad"),^[31] his effect on the American youth and society ("The Way I Am", "Who Knew"),^[31] and reactionary barbs to critical response of his vulgarity and dark themes ("Criminal").^[31] Despite the large amount of controversy regarding the lyrics, the lyrics on the album were overwhelmingly well received among critics and the hip hop community, many praising Eminem's verbal energy and dense rhyme patterns.^[32][33]

The album contains various lyric samples and references. It features a number of lines mimicking songs from Eric B. & Rakim's album Paid in Full. The chorus to "The Way I Am" resembles lines from the song "As the Rhyme Goes On",^[34] and the first two lines from the third verse of "I'm Back" are based on lines from "My Melody".^[35] Two lines in "Marshall Mathers" parody the song "Summer Girls" by LFO. Bitch Please II is the only compisition that Eminem and Snoop Dogg did together.

The record also contains lyrics that have been considered to be homophobic.^[36] The song "Criminal" features the line, "My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge/That'll stab you in the head whether you're a fag or les...Hate fags?/The answer's yes."^[36] The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) condemned his lyrics and criticized the album for "encourag[ing] violence against gay men and lesbians".^[37] However, writing for the LGBT interest magazine The Advocate, editor Dave White writes, "If he has gay-bashed you or me, then it logically follows that he has also raped his own mother, killed his wife, and murdered his producer, Dr. Dre. If he's to be taken literally, then so is Britney Spears' invitation to 'hit me baby, one more time'."^[36] Eminem noted that he began using the word "faggot" more frequently when "people got all up in arms about it...to piss them off worse", but added that "I think its hard for some people to understand that for me the word 'faggot' has nothing to do with sexual preference. I meant something more like assholes or dickheads."^[38]

Track List

Eminem:-

Eminem Drug Issues [1]

Eminem Family Problems [2]

'Life before fame' Youtube clip [3]

Origins of rap music [4]

BBC Recovery review [5]

Rolling Stones quote [6]

NME Recovery review [7]

Recovery success - Wikipedia [8]

Not Afraid statistics [9]

Recovery Forum [10]
The Guardian Quote [11]
Lyrical Content of The Marshall Mathers LP [12]
BBC News - Kim and Eminem - Stress [13]
Eminem - King of Hip-hop [14]
Origins of rap music 2 [15]
Uses and Gratifications theory - presentation [16]
Cultivation thoery [17]
The Advocate - Eminem [18]
NME Album review - Marshall LP [19]
Lupe Fiaso bbc -20
Kim -Rolling stones [21]
The Nielsen company [22] 

Odd Future:-
Odd Future BBC Interview [1]
NME OF Tape Vol.2 Review [2]
Odd Future - OF Tape Vol.2 BBC Music Review [3]
Rolling Stone OF Tape Vol.2 Review [4]
Yonkers Youtube Link [5]
Artists Opinions on Odd Future [6]
Odd Future Wiki [7]
Yonkers review [8]

Odd Future BBC Interview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G65r9vZQuZQ

NME OF Tape Vol.2 Review

Verdict
An hour and a bit is more than enough time to spend in Odd Future’s company unless you’re still in touch with the 14-year-old moron within, in which case the gags are good. With so much supposed talent in the collective though, there could be more variation in the beats (stuck on ‘lope’) and the synths (stuck on ‘slightly sinister’). And as ever, you either take the misogyny, homophobia and general dickishness with a pinch of salt like they claim you should or hand them a public pummeling. The alternative is giving ‘The Odd Future Tape Vol. 2’ the swerve altogether and missing out on 10 tracks’ worth of decent official opening salvo (and some mixtape throwaways). Your call. Swag.

http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=1&title=first_listen_odd_future_the_odd_future_t_2&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

Rolling Stones quote

"Let's be honest, that last Relapse CD was eh," Eminem admits on "Not Afraid," his therapeutic new single. Even a sicko like Slim Shady couldn't stomach another humorless disc of Lindsay Lohan decapitation fantasies, so he scrapped Relapse II to bring us Recovery, the apparently more introspective disc that's due this summer. "Not Afraid" reflects the new MO: It's part "fuck tha world" rage rap and part rehab-session group hug, complete with lyrics about kicking drugs and booze, and a chorus where Em sings, "Everybody come take my hand/We'll walk this road together." Over a dark, operatic beat, Eminem delivers rhymes that are typically acrobatic — and typically heavy-handed. But the anger has a gathering quality. Em ­reaffirms his commitment to his daughters, says he got sober in part to inspire his fans and promises to purge his craziness: "Time to exercise these demons/These motherfuckers are doing jumping jacks now."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/songreviews/not-afraid-20100512#ixzz2Az0JMeWa

Odd Future - OF Tape Vol.2 BBC Music Review

BBC Review

‘Post-fame’ follow-up to notorious rap crew’s 2008 online-only debut.

Paul Lester 2012-03-23

This is being trumpeted as Odd Future’s first release ‘proper’, and certainly it’s their first since achieving global notoriety at the start of last year, roughly around the time mainman Tyler, the Creator made a startling black-and-white video to go with his single Yonkers. But this is by no means their debut: there have been upwards of a dozen free-to-download albums released over the last few years, many of them ranking with the best music made in the name of hip hop, particularly Tyler’s Bastard and Earl by the group’s totemic 11th member, Earl Sweatshirt. Said pair unveiled OF’s trademarks: brutally unpleasant lyrics set to music that was by turns bludgeoning and beautiful, a near-relative of chillwave, of which Tyler is a big fan. 

The OF Tape Vol 2 is up against it from the start: up against all those albums and all the press and blog blather that’s resulted from the group’s provocative lyrics. OF are basically in the position the Sex Pistols were after Never Mind the Bollocks – and last anyone heard, they didn’t manage a follow-up at all, let alone 12 precursors. 

Judged in this light, The OF Tape Vol 2 is an excellent addition to the group’s canon, which despite Tyler’s pronouncements to the contrary matters to this crew, who it would be foolish to dismiss as mere feral skatekids. Tyler and Left Brain’s skills as producers are peerless, even if their N*E*R*D adoration (to match their Waka Flocka Flame worship) reaches new heights on tracks such as Analog 2 and Ya Know, luscious funk muzak so breezily pretty you can’t believe they’re not Pharrell Williams covers, equal parts sick and slick. The former features a disclaimer from Tyler – "B*****s think I’m crazy / It’s just so I don’t bore you to death" – reminding listeners not to underestimate the self-lacerating aspect of his art, just in case you thought this was another misogynist's charter masquerading as a slow jam.

Lean is slow, spacey, electronic, Hodgy Beats all over it as he is much of this album. He’s a catalytic figure perhaps, but not the greatest rapper in OF, lacking the charisma of Tyler and Earl. Doms has a beat worthy of Clipse’s epochal (Neptunes-produced) Grindin’, and is puerile but ingeniously so, while Sam (Is Dead) cements their reputation for the murderously mellifluous and Rella goes some way towards recreating the impact of their early avant-rap.

If that wasn’t eclectic enough, enter Frank Ocean. OF’s in-house RnB superstar-in-waiting appears on White, a straight-up Stevie Wonder-style ballad, as though he’s wandered into the wrong session. And in case you wondered what happened to Earl, he makes a cameo on 10-minute closer Oldie, which incidentally is accompanied by a video wherein OF goof around in photographer Terry Richardson’s studio. And it’s a thrill to see the Wolf Gang in all their juvenile glory, and a reminder of how young they still are.

Is it possible to repeat the shock of first hearing, and hearing about, OF? Probably not. But they’re in a better place than the Pistols were by album two.

Odd Future Wiki

Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, often abbreviated to OFWGKTA (stylized OFWGK†Δ) or simply Odd Future, is an American alternative hip hop collective from Los Angeles, California. The collective is led by rapper/producer Tyler, The Creator, and includes rappers Hodgy Beats, Earl Sweatshirt, Domo Genesis, and Mike G, singer-songwriter/rapper Frank Ocean, producers Left Brain, Syd Tha Kyd, Matt Martians, Hal Williams and other non-musical members, notably pseudo rappers Jasper Dolphin and Taco Bennett. Tyler has said that there are 60 members in the group. There are multiple groups inside the collective: MellowHype, The Internet, The Jet Age of Tomorrow, EarlWolf, and MellowHigh.

The Origins of Rap music - Wikipedia

Hip hop as music and culture formed during the 1970s when block parties became increasingly popular inNew York City, particularly among African American youth residing in the Bronx.^[17] Block parties incorporated DJs who played popular genres of music, especially funk and soul music. Due to the positive reception, DJs began isolating the percussive breaks of popular songs. This technique was then common in Jamaican dub music,^[18] and was largely introduced into New York by immigrants from Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean, including DJ Kool Herc, who is generally considered the father of hip hop. Because the percussive breaks in funk, soul and disco records were generally short, Herc and other DJs began using two turntables to extend the breaks.

Turntablist techniques - such as scratching (attributed to Grand Wizzard Theodore^[19][20]), beat mixing and/or matching, and beat juggling - eventually developed along with the breaks, creating a base that could be rapped over, in a manner similar to signifying, as well as the art of toasting, another influence found in Jamaican dub music.^[18][21]

Hip hop music in its infancy has be described as an outlet and a "voice" for the disenfranchised youth of low-economic areas,^[22] as the culture reflected the social, economic and political realities of their lives.^[23]

Explore and compare the representation of Male artists within the Rap/Hip-Hop genre, focusing on Eminem and Odd Future

Explore and Compare the Representation of Male Artists Within the Rap/Hip-Hop Genre, Focusing on Eminem and Odd Future

For my Research Investigation, I have chosen to analyse the way in which male artists within the Rap/Hip-Hop genre are represented in the Media, focusing on one album from each of the two artists: Eminem and Odd Future. I have chosen to analyse 'The Marshall Mathers LP'; one of the greatest Hip-Hop albums by one of the worlds most iconic, and successful Rap/Hip-Hop stars: Eminem. I will also be analysing and comparing the 'OF Tape Vol. 2' by the less mainstream, more outspoken Los Angeles Rap/Hip-Hop group: Odd Future. These two artists are great examples as their are both portrayed negatively and possitively within the media. Aside from their many similarities, they have certain differences in that Eminem does not take the typical 'black rapper' stereotype unlike Odd Future; this therefore gives room within my research to allow me to compare and contrast between these two influential figures. Throughout my investigation I will be using theories such as the Uses and Gratifications theory to recieve a more indepth view of how these two figures are represented.

Eminem's life has had a massive impact into his music. His music provides a meaning as most it based on his real life past experiences and difficulties; such as the bad relationship with his mother, the divorce and remarriage of his Ex Wife Kim, and his battle with the media to get his music in the public eye. This is furthermore portrayed in his music videos, and a good example would be 'The Way I am' inwhich Em is lashing out at people he feels are putting to much pressure on him including overzelous fans and record companies expecting him to top his previous successful singles, 'My Name Is' and 'The Real Slim Shady'. The Way I Am starts off with a series on very fast paced cut scenes with a 'heart-beat' like sound in the background. This is used to emphasise the stress and pressure Eminem is feeling. This outlash towards his fans and press could present a negative representation on the Male Rap music industry however it also may create sympathy for Em, as through personal identity, the fans feel his pain and can thus relate to the pressure and stress he is feeling.

Life Before The Fame

Eminem Family Problems

He was married twice to Kimberly Anne Scott, whom he met in high school. Kimberly had run away from her home as a teenager, along with her sister Dawn. They moved in with Marshall and his mother when he was 15. Kim and Marshall began their on-and-off relationship in 1989, and were married in 1999. In 2000, they filed for divorce shortly after Kim's second drunk driving conviction. The couple first divorced in 2001 but remarried in January 2006. Their second divorce was finalized in December of the same year, with the couple agreeing to share custody of their daughter, Hailie Jade Mathers.

Cleaning Out My Closet - "I was a baby maybe i was just a couple of months, my faggot father must of had his panties up in a bunch, cause he split, i wonder if he even kissed me goodbye, no i don't on second thought, i just fucking wished he would die."

Eminem's Drug Addiction

Eminem has spoken openly about his addiction to prescription drugs, including Vicodin, Ambien, Valium and Methadone. His group-mate Proof from D12 stated that Mathers "sobered up" in 2002 from drug and alcohol dependence. However, he did turn to zolpidem (Ambien) sleeping pills for relief from sleeping troubles. This caused Mathers to cancel the European leg of the Anger Management Tour in August 2005 and eventually go into rehab for treatment for a "dependency on sleep medication". In a 2009 interview with British talk-show host Jonathan Ross, Mathers admitted that at the height of his addiction, he considered suicide, saying that, "I just wasn't taking care of myself, at times I wanted to just give it up." He also confirmed that he is now sober, commenting that, "Rap was my drug ... Then I had to resort to other things to make me feel that. Now rap's getting me high again."