God sent me to piss the world off
— Eminem, “My Name Is”

Incidentally, Em’s own daughter, Hailie, was 4 years old when this song came out.

Insane Clown Posse is a hip-hop duo from Detroit that wears clown makeup and had penned a diss of Eminem titled “Slim Anus” (playing on Eminem’s nickname “Slim Shady”: “my name is – chikka chikka – Slim Anus”).

ICP was known for spraying Faygo Root Beer (Faygo is a brand which is based in Detroit) at its audience during concerts.

Faygo is the watermelon to the ICP’s Gallagher.

ICP was also at the centre of the weapons incident involving their then manager Douglas Dail, whom it was alleged Eminem waved an unloaded handgun at.

Notice the wordplay on “look queer” (look weird / look gay)

He had mentioned this the previous year while he was on the Howard Stern Show. When Howard Stern asked him how he knew so much about Insane Clown Posse, he replied:

I used to be with, with a couple other groups and we used to chase them outta clubs…in the city

At 7:28 mark

Insane Clown Posse member Violent J responded in Insane Clown Posse’s diss track “Ain’t Nuttin But A Bitch Thang”:

You ain’t never shot at us with no paint balls (Lyin'-ass bitch)
Matter of fact you can come get these painted balls, motherfucker
Come get these Juggalo painted balls, bitch
You ain’t never chased us out of no club, bitch (Weak-ass bitch)
The only club you ever chased anybody out of was a gay bar, bitch

Eminem first got arrested for shooting a police car with a paintball gun when he was 20 years old. However it was actually Eminem’s friend who shot the police car and according to police the paintball didn’t even break. The alleged victim didn’t show up for court so Eminem’s case was dismissed. Eminem referenced this in his movie 8 Mile where his character James “Jimmy” Smith Jr. aka B-Rabbit and his friends shoot paintballs at random spots while driving by and Eminem’s character shoots a police car.

After Insane Clown Posse accused Eminem of going soft after the release of his movie 8 Mile, Eminem responded in his song “Monkey See Monkey Do” where he again mentions shooting paintballs:

You pussies think I went soft ‘cause 8 Mile? When I come back, I’ll be shootin’ more than just paintballs, trust me

He also wrote about shooting paintballs at people in his 2008 autobiography book The Way I Am:

Sometimes we’d go out and bust our guns – paintball guns – at some random Detroit folk.

The dramatic flip from the mundane nature of the first line is a jumping point for one of Eminem’s most aggressive verses on the record. During the recording of this track, he still was genuinely a regular guy, living in Detroit:

Back then I was living on a main road, Hayes Street, and random people used to come and knock on my door all the time. The first album had gone four times platinum. I finally had money. I remember thinking, I have a house, I can park in the back. It was the first time in my life I had a real home that I could call my own and nobody was going to be able to throw me out. Directly across the street, there was a fucking trailer park. Wouldn’t you know it?“
—Eminem, via his 2008 autobiography, The Way I Am.

Firstly, the image of Eminem walking a dead, decapitated dog in a park full of people and children playing and relaxing is extreme and signifies that he is about to take everything to another level. He adds a cherry on top by painting a picture of him yelling at the headless dog to stop barking, all whilst sneaking in the line ‘son of a bitch’ to add a not-so-subtle play on words.

This track also continues Eminem’s relationship with insanity, something he explored deeply on The Slim Shady LP through tracks like “Brain Damage and “As The World Turns”, and would go on to address for the rest of his career, most notably on “My Dad’s Gone Crazy” and “The Monster”.

This stack of lines stands out dramatically from the rest of the track, which is a straight description and annihilation of all those who have opposed Eminem up to this point. It is included to not only remind us that he can still embody Slim Shady, but that he genuinely does not care what his detractors think of him.

Remy Martin is a type of expensive Cognac. Eminem displays his wealth in as subtle a way possible in this line, and reverts back to his more crazed persona from the rottweiler line.

This is a loaded line, and one very reminiscent of Eminem’s dichotomy as an artist, especially as his career progressed. He has always struggled with the idea that if he weren’t white, he wouldn’t have had the same impact that he has had on rap music.

Dr. Dre was a potent force in his transferral from an underground wordsmith to a pop music icon.

From The Way I Am:

“Dre had been saying, ‘We got the record, we just need an image. But I never thought much about what Slim Shady looked like. Then one day, I was high on E, walking the streets with Royce. We went into a drugstore and bought a bottle of peroxide… The next day I looked in the mirror and forgotten I’d did it.”

When Dre saw it, he said “That’s it! We found your image!”

Em uses the word ‘pop’ as a double entendre here. First, he means pop music in the strictest sense, the TRL appearances and performing at the Grammy’s with Elton John. Secondly, he means he blew up as an artist, and that line from White America confirms his belief that if he wasn’t blonde-haired and blue-eyed, he wouldn’t have become this lightning rod for attention.

Anthony Bozza wrote in his biography of Eminem, Whatever You Say I Am:

Eventually Kim moved back in with her family, who had always disapproved of Marshall and made it difficult for him to see his daughter.

Funnily enough, when “My Name Is” was blowing up, Eminem moved back in briefly with Kim and her parents, and Anthony Bozza explained that the neighbors were star-struck, not remembering that Marshall had been frequenting their street for years as the teenage lover of Kim.

Referring to Insane Clown Posse’s diss track “Slim Anus” which is a parody of Eminem’s song “My Name Is” and the title is a play off of Eminem’s alter ego Slim Shady. In the diss track they speak in the perspective of Eminem, saying that he’s gay and let Dr. Dre hit him from the back in order to get his record deal:

Hi kids, do you like Anus?
I let Dr. Dre fill out my butt for a chance to be famous (Uh huh)
Wanna copy me and do exactly like I did? (Yeah)
Try cid, get your butt pumped out like I did?

And Dr. Dre said, “Slim Shady you a cutie (Uh huh)
I’ll give you a deal let me up in that booty” (OK!)

Eminem flips this narrative on them, saying that he indeed has a slim anus because he doesn’t engage in homosexual activities unlike Insane Clown Posse who would then have a skit of Eminem getting hit from behind by Dr. Dre in the beginning of their response track “Ain’t Nuttin' But A Bitch Thang”.

The name “Slim Anus” was first used by Insane Clown Posse in Twiztid’s song “$85 Bucks An Hour”.

Also by calling them “two little flamin' faggots” Eminem is referring to the two flaming heads cover of their album The Amazing Jeckel Brothers.

Back in the pre-torrents day, people actually paid $16 for an album. Britney Spears' first two records sold a combined 54 million copies..

Although Eminem’s critics have often labeled him a thief of black culture, a fact not lost on the rapper, he has always viewed himself as an ardent student of hip hop.

It’s worth noting that in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, referencing Biggie and ‘Pac was about the most serious thing you could do. At this time, it had only been a few years since their passing and the hip-hop community was feeling the deep void they left more than ever.

Eminem uses this reference to highlight the fact that this track is much more serious than the work his fans were used to under the Slim Shady alter-ego.

“Leaning out the window with a cocked-shotgun” also refers to the famous picture of human rights activist Malcom X with a rifle. Just like Big and Pac, Malcom was also assisinated.

In 2003, Eminem produced a track called “Running (Dying to Live)”. When interviewed about it he stated:

“Basically what I was trying to do with it was take people back to that time when that beef was happening and make them realise how ridiculous the beef was in the first place, that it ever came to that.”

On the track “One Day At A Time”, Em’s verse opens with heavy imagery about Pac and Big’s death.

The shotgun is larger than Biggie, who was over 25 stone.

Not to mention the wordplay on Biggie’s name (BIG).

He’s always gettin screwed, so what else is he supposed to do?

On a poetic level, this is a subtly brilliant line. The assonance is (as always with Em) easy and free flowing, but it also dovetails nicely with the everyman All-American Joe idiom of ‘What’s a fella to do?“ effortlessly shifting the tone from acerbic to colloquial, even jovial.
It’s touches like this that cement Eminem as a master of the craft, even if it all happens intuitively. golf clap

It just further solidifies the sense that he is speaking from his “Marshall Mathers” persona, and there is no sense of irony or sarcasm that usually attends his “Slim Shady” or “Eminem” persona.

Eminem has had a tortured relationship with the press and certain interest groups who have actively picketed against him, even landing him a reference in National Congress; when Lynne Cheney accused Eminem of actively targeting children with his lyrics.

This track is all about taking visceral aim at his detractors, but it is by no means the last time he would do so, and not even on this record. “Who Knew” is a direct response to those claiming his lyrics incite violence, going as far to say:

But don’t blame me when little Eric jumps off of the terrace
You shoulda been watchin' him, apparently you ain’t parents

This track can be seen as the tip of the iceberg for Eminem. Things got decidedly worse after the release of this record, culminating in his vicious attack on the politically correct America on the track “White America” off The Eminem Show.

(na na) is something that you would hear from children – a reference to “a bunch of little kids”

Crips wear blue and bloods wear red: wearing the wrong colors in the wrong areas is asking for trouble. Em’s unhinged enough that he dresses in a way that’s guaranteed to piss off any gang members who see him

On 2Pac’s song “To Live & Die in LA”, he also mentions this dress code, and by linking this reference Eminem is strengthening his claim that he should be taken seriously as a hip hop artist, and not a sideshow or comedic act.

He makes a powerful statement too about gang culture, something he went back and forth with during the early part of his career, especially his violent imagery on The Eminem Show. His anger at the senseless killing of Biggie and Pac spills over in this line, “I don’t see what the big deal is”.

Eminem’s trouble’s with the law have generally stemmed from a desire to ‘keep it real’; to take on any challenger, aggressively and physically. He has made no apologies for his violent nature.

He was sentenced to 2 years of probation for an incident where he waved an unloaded pistol at a member of ICP’s management team. He was also given probation for an incident with John Guerra in June in 2000, in which Guerra alleged he was ‘pistol whipped’ by Marshall.

Eminem has addressed both these issues on The Eminem Show, in “Hailie’s Song” and “Sing For The Moment”.

From The Way I Am:

“… whenever somebody fucks with me, I get violent. And if I’m drunk and someone fucks with me, it’s even worse.”

Aliases are important to Eminem, so going by his actual name, “Marshall Mathers,” signals a more human tone, in stark contrast to his voice as “Slim Shady,” which is a persona whose content is designed to shock and disgust.

When coming up in the game, it was incredibly difficult for Em to get respect, often getting booed off stage. Once he became famous, everyone was interested.

After the release of The Slim Shady LP, Em attracted the ire of some corners of the musical community, most notably Timothy White, the then-Billboard editor-in-chief. His editorial criticised Eminem’s violent stance against women, and Eminem would respond to this on “Bitch Please II”, off this record.

In his 2008 autobiography, The Way I Am, Em wrote:

I flew coach until The Marshall Mathers LP came out. You don’t know how famous you are until you’re sitting in coach and people won’t leave you the fuck alone, and let you sleep.

Eminem wants it to be socially acceptable again to physically beat people who are cowards or assholes. This is further expressed in the previous line when he explains all he see is sissies smiling and almost nobody is gangster anymore.

Eminem misses the days of N.W.A., Ice-T and Ice Cube, when violence was seemingly an integral part of rap music.

In The Way I Am, Eminem speaks extensively on his violent streak, one that resulted in numerous court appearances and a 2 year probation for weapons offenses.

“I went through a phase back then when I was fucking shooting pistols in the air behind the studio and, you know, pulling guns on motherfuckers, pointing a pistol in somebody’s face, not even realizing that I could’ve gone to jail for that shit.”

The Post-Pac/Biggie period in rap, from 1997 to the mid 2000s, was characterised by the glamorisation of ‘bling’ in rap music, instigated by artists such as Jay-Z who shot videos on yachts, surrounded by women and lavish lifestyles.

Crist refers to Cristal which was, ironically made famous amongst hip hop artists by Biggie in the first place.

Eminem employs a play on words with the wrist watches/sit back and just watch couplet, before expanding further on the hidden meaning amongst the line, saying that all the ice and the liquor makes him nauseous, as well as the lavish lifestyle.

Eminem has never been one to openly display his wealth, whether it be in person or in his music, which is the polar opposite of most of his contemporaries.

Also, note that he said Crist' poppin' which sounds like Chris poppin', which alludes back to the fact of Biggie being popped (shot).

There’s two avenues of narrative in this line.

The first goes back to the first verse, and his beef with ICP, focusing on their status as wrestlers, with Eminem explaining he isn’t fake (as wrestling is staged), and that if someone says something about him he won’t hesitate to strike them.

It also refers to Eminem’s much publicised beef with Limp Bizkit and Everlast, specifically over DJ Lethal claiming that if Eminem and Everlast were to fight, Everlast would be victorious.

Eminem would later deal with this extensively and exhaustively on the track “Girls” from their album Devil’s Night.

The Marshall Mathers LP was released on May 23, 2000, so most likely he was writing this song while he was still on tour promoting the Slim Shady LP. Eminem didn’t blow up until the release of “My Name Is” in 1999.

In the book Whatever You Say I Am, Anthony Bozza explains that even in the frenzy that occurred after Eminem released “My Name Is”, he was still returning to the same trailer park after being on the road, living in the same trailer he had been before he recorded the song, and this was early 1999.

When The Slim Shady LP was released, it sold 283,000 copies in its first week, and was certified platinum just 10 days after its release. Eminem references those who came up to him with their hands out in the rest of the song: Debbie Mathers, his estranged father and siblings, and Kim’s family.

Jazz musician Jacques Loussier would take Eminem up on this by suing, after this song’s release, for $10 million.

He was also confronted with a defamation suit from his ex-wife Kim for vividly describing her violent death in this song.

D12 is Eminem’s rap posse. The ‘two females’ refer to Detroit rap duo Insane Clown Posse, who Em was beefing with at the time. The bulk of this verse is about them as well.

This song came out around the same time as ICP’s The Amazing Jeckel Brothers, and the promo pics for the album had ICP wearing latex monster hands with long black fingernails.

Dan Carlisle, a fellow Detroit MC who performed under the name Hush, has commented on this line to The Detroit Metro Times:

When Em got back from LA recording The Slim Shady LP […] we went to his mother’s house in the trailer park on 26 Mile. His mom tried to be nice, but she didn’t look so good. I’d been forewarned by Em, but it was a bit of shock to see her so blew out,” says Hush. “But then the first thing Em does is lift up her mattress and look for pills. When he says ‘I picked up the habit’ on The Marshall Mathers LP, he means it.

From the same article linked above, DJ Rec (Bob Claus), Em’s onetime roommate who produced The Slim Shady EP versions of “Murder, Murder” and “If I Had…” as well as the original “My Name Is”, explains:

[Eminem] was straight-edge back in the day. He could hardly take a hit of a joint. He messed around with the painkillers every once in a while — especially when they’re literally laying around the house.

Eminem would later devote an entire song (“My Mom”) to claiming that his mother forced him to take valiums and other drugs and thus started his lifelong pattern of drug abuse

MC Get-Bizzy just went platinum in Guam. His single “Bizzy Bounce” has topped the charts over there. I missed out. Damn

Insane Clown Posse members Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope first met in Oak Park, which is actually 16.4 miles from Detroit but Eminem rounds it up for this diss. Both Insane Clown Posse members were born in Ferndale, which is 12 miles away.

Eminem had mentioned that Insane Clown Posse isn’t from Detroit the previous year while he was on the Howard Stern Show. When Howard Stern asked him if he knew Insane Clown Posse, he replied:

They claim Detroit, they’re not from Detroit, they’re from no parts of Detroit, they’re from the Suburb, they claim, they claim so much junk and I know so much about ‘em that it’s like, it makes me sick every time they talk

At 7:03 mark

This might also be a reference to Ice Cube’s line in his diss track “No Vaseline”:

Yelling Compton, but you moved to Riverside

What happened to that car?
Worth noting that in the context of late 90s/ early 00s hip hop, referencing Biggie and Pac is about the most ‘serious’ thing you can do. Eminem uses this reference to highlight that he is in full “Marshall Mathers” mode, and this song is deadly serious, in contrast to his work with alter ego “Slim Shady”.

Eminem has always viewed himself as an ardent student of hip hop, but his critics have at times labeled him a thief of black culture.

From his book The Way I Am:

When my popularity grew to middle America, some people started to compare me to Elvis. Is he stealing black music and culture? That was the last thing I was trying to do. I was just doing the music that I grew up on and that I love.

By ‘searching for Big’s killers’, Eminem is placing himself in the shoes of every other rapper at the time, who was shocked and upset that the art form had lost two incredible men, thus ingratiating himself within the hip hop community.

Insane Clown Posse owns and operates the independent wrestling promotion Juggalo Championship Wrestling.

The duo also performed for the World Wrestling Federation for 3 months and then moved on to the (now-defunct) Extreme Championship Wrestling

Eminem disrespectfully plays on the stage names of the Horrorcore rap duo, Insane Clown Posse, – Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J.

The rest of this verse is a diss to the group, and the track is followed by a skit where ICP fellates recurring pervert character Ken Kaniff while thinking about Eminem.

A very smooth transition into his anti-Pop culture ranting. In this line ‘Backstreet’ and ‘Ricky Martin’ act as metonyms for the whole pop culture. 2000 also witnessed the peak of the boy-band / teenage-girl singer era; the album has a lot of offensive material about the big groups of that time: Backstreet Boys, Ricky Martin, N'Sync, etc.

Seriously, doesn’t just looking at this guy kind of piss you off?

Side note: the use of the word “fucking” is the first use of the word after Em said “I promised the fucking critics I wouldn’t say "fucking” for six minutes!“ in "Remember Me?” It’s actually a little over six minutes.

This line can be read in two ways. Firstly, Eminem is describing the way that the underground paid no notice of him until he began to pop off with Proof at The Hip Hop Shop in 1995.

The Way I Am:

“Vanilla Ice had made it damn near impossible for a white kid to get respect in rap music”.

“I recorded Infinite in 1995, my first album. It sold maybe 70 copies and didn’t get great feedback.”

His early releases, sold on consignment, were universally ignored. To say the underground did a “360” is to take it right back to the beginning of his life as a rapper, when he was getting no respect from his peers, saying that the underground has spun right around back to that original mindset since his pop icon status was cemented on The Slim Shady LP.

Others have mused that he instead meant to say “180”, but that 360 rhymed with ‘sissies’, ‘Missy’ and ‘Bizzy’. Once Eminem began to rap for others consistently, around 1995, the underground embraced him, and so for the underground to spin around on him means they turned on him, started to diss him.

“With the Slim Shady EP, it was a different story. That shit got some buzz in the underground, and online sites couldn’t keep it in stock. I started getting calls about shows”.

Em’s mom became Mrs. Mathers when she married Eminem’s father. They divorced but apparently she kept the Mathers name. Then she married her fourth husband, John Briggs. In her book My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem, she explains how they argued over her taking his name. She wanted to keep Mathers, he wanted her to take his name. She eventually ended up hyphenating.

Em might be referring to that. He might also be mocking her for having been married so many times that he doesn’t even remember what her name is. He could also be calling her out for using different names to doctor shop in order to attain more prescription medication, but both of these theories have never been revisited on subsequent records.

This is sung to the tune of and modeled off the chorus of “Summer Girls” (1999) by the boyband LFO singing about fellow boyband New Kids on the Block. This song was a huge meme.

New Kids on the Block had a bunch of hits
Chinese food makes me sick
And I think it’s fly when girls stop by for the summer
For the summer

Referencing the lawsuits against him by his mother Debbie and ex-wife Kim.

Eminem’s mom actually did sue him for defamation, for lines such as “I just found out my mom does more dope than I do”. He ended up settling for $25,000, and apparently her lawyer pocketed the vast majority of that.

Eminem’s mom brought a slander lawsuit against her son alleging that Eminem was lying about his mom’s drug use.

Here, Eminem claims that his mom’s attorney, Fred Gibson, was only pursuing the case because Gibson felt slighted that Em wouldn’t have anal sex with him. That is the overt meaning, however he carries over the ‘faggot’ reference from the previous line, which is basically calling him a punk, or a pussy, as Eminem has been at pains to explain.

You can see why Aftermath Records decided to censor Eminem’s use of Gibson’s name on the song; whereas his mom’s case was weak, this would definitely count as slander against a defamation lawyer (and slander pertaining to a loathsome disease gets presumptive damages!)

Eric Cartman is the chubby immoral character on South Park; the “God damnit” ad-lib in the background is in Cartman’s voice.

FUN FACT: Around this time (late 90’s early 2000’s), Eminem claimed to be 2 years younger than he actually was. A clear example of this is when he claimed to be 24 years old on “The Howard Stern Show” (which was aired on April 26, 1999) when he was really 26.

Directly after this line, he commences “starting shit” by calling out groups and people by name.
Also, his delivery becomes more angry and less calm. Up until this point, Em raps in an almost conversational tone. By the end of verse two, he’s undeniably in a state of rage.

Eminem employs the work of South Park later on this record as well, with the deluxe edition housing the song “The Kids”, and on Recovery on “Untitled”.

This line is a direct response to those who were waiting for Eminem to act out on the material dreams he had from “If I Had”, and it set the tone not only for this album, but Eminem’s blatant rejection of materialism within his rhymes.

Puffy, or Sean Combs was the record producer credited with helping Notorious B.I.G. make it big on the radio, and he was regarded as a crossover king. Jay-Z even went to him for his second record, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 to boost his record sales.

By name checking Puffy, and rejecting groupies, who were seen as everyday fodder for rappers during the late 90s, Eminem immediately paints himself as the anti-thesis to pop music. Not only does he violently reject the idea of pop music, he now takes it to those in hip hop who are only in it for the money.

Funnily enough, despite not courting pop success, Eminem is now one of the most successful recording artists of all time in terms of sales, and he owes a lot of it to those early days of MTV playing his videos ad nauseum.

Eminem flips the whole situation with his trademark wit, positioning himself as so large that a hip hop publication calling him a Klu Klux Klan member is so beneath him he doesn’t mind shouting them out in a song (even in a diss song) to give them a bit of coverage.

XXL was founded in 1997, and at the time of this song was still struggling for traction. Since this incident, Eminem and XXL have come full circle, whilst his relationship with hip hop’s other major magazine, The Source, has never recovered from his Benzino feud.

Em’s focus on XXL’s relevance may have been inspired by the magazine refusing to do a story on him early in his career, apparently due to his race:

Well, there was a little beef when I first came out. Pretty much the old staff jumped the gun on all this. Early on our publicist was trying to get XXL to do a cover story and XXL said, “No. We aren’t doing articles on no White rappers, period.” So then after I came out, they did do a story on me, but it wasn’t an interview. The story said that I was a culture-stealers and a Ku Klux Klan member…basically just popping shit. So I went on a XXL-bashing campaign, which might not have been the smartest thing at that time, ‘cause in the position that I was in, I really needed XXL. But I’m the type that if it’s “Fuck me” then it’s “Fuck you!” I am almost never the one to say “Fuck you” first. So I would go on stage and tear up copies of the magazine and have the whole crowd chanting, “Fuck Double-X-L!” Otherwise, I wouldn’t even come on stage. But years have passed, and I’m told that XXL has a whole new staff now. I’ve grown up, and I know that there are some grudges that you hold close to your heart and others that you can let go of.

Em’s basically saying that XXL needed him more than he needed them. And seeing that MMLP went 11x Platinum in the United States, it looks like he was right.

From the moment MTV started playing “My Name Is,” Eminem became a polarizing figure. His first album has sold 5 million copies in the US alone, and he was winning fans and enemies alike.

Eminem can be referring to two phenomenon’s in this line, and it sets up the rest of the track. Firstly, the much feared ‘sophomore slump’, where an artist follows up a classic first album with a mediocre second one, would have been on his mind. Clearly, he did not suffer this fate.

Secondly, he is probably referring to the volume of white noise in the media at the time of his writing this song, with everyone from GLAAD to his own mother taking aim at his lyrical content.

Much was expected of Eminem upon the release of this album, from his fans and his enemies alike. He managed to satisfy everyone.

In Detroit, they employ a Mile Road System. 8 Mile Road is the dividing line between Detroit and its Northern suburbs. For Eminem to say that Insane Clown Posse hasn’t seen a mile road ‘south of 10’ implies that, as he said earlier in the verse, ICP are not in fact from Detroit at all.

The target of this lyric was omitted from all commercial releases—likely for legal reasons. An uncut version surfaced, so we know it’s:

It doesn’t matter, your attorney Fred Gibson’s a faggot

Em has also performed it live, such as on the Farmclub show in 2000:

What’s interesting about the Farmclub clip is that in that instance, only the term “faggot” is censored for the TV audience. Whereas for the album, they elected to leave the slur and simply censor its target!

Only in 2018 would Em begin shying away from the word, censoring it on “Fall”. Prior to that, Em often defended his use by noting that he didn’t use it to call people homosexual. But in this lyric, he develops the insult into a punchline about Fred Gibson lusting after him, not unlike other homosexual characters elsewhere on the album.

Contrary to what I once thought, food stamps are NOT edible. A night in urgent care & a stomach pumping taught me that.

You could spot the rapper doing normal things like jogging or walking, just like every other Average Joe. This is expanding on the idea and main basis of the song that he is just a normal man with some not-so-normal problems.
Em is a modern day master of the unstable psychotic rap persona, and this opening verse is exhibit A. He starts by painting a picture of fairly stable ordinary activity, his calm breathing underlining his efforts to stay, well, normal.

Then, in the next line it quickly disintegrates into full blown insanity and wild surrealism. Eminem enjoys letting us watch his mind unravel. Note the repetition of ‘you might see me’, which almost acts as an anchoring motif… but as we know, Em can’t stay grounded for very long. See here for another example of disintegration into insanity in an opening verse.

A standard rapper complaint is about how people in the ghetto come out of the woodwork pretending to have always loved you once you start making money; Kanye had a similar complaint on “Forever”

As a child, Eminem wrote several letters to his dad, Marshall Mathers II, however they were all returned to him. Once Eminem had blown up, his father wrote him an open letter attempting to reach out to him.

Eminem has a half sister, Sarah Mathers and a half brother, Michael Mathers. These are the half-brother and sister he refers to in this song.

He has another half brother via his mother, Nathan Kane, whom he had legal custody of throughout much of Nate’s young life due to Nate’s Mum, Debbie Mathers, being deemed unfit to raise him.

His half brother, Nathan, can be wiped of any blame, he was always a part of Eminems life, however both his dad and half sister attempted contact after he had become famous, which is possibly why Eminem has not looked upon them kindly, at this time or in subsequent years.

Vanilla Ice, popular white MC at the time, must have been jealous of Em’s success when he told Vibe Magazine in 1999 that “Eminem raps like a girl”

It didn’t help that not too long after Ice said that, he actually did cut and dye his hair in a style that looked exactly like Em did in the 90s.