'The Marshall Mathers LP'

I can't listen to Eminem without thinking that if he was at my high school, he would've been one of the dozen white kids who thought he was black that we always made fun of.

The irony of that is where I went to school and grew up, we honestly didn't have a lot of Hispanic or African Americans. In fact, there were more white kids who thought they were Hispanic or black than we actually had black or Hispanic kids.

At times, Eminem is a master rapper and lyricist. Other times, he falls back on cliche rhymes and his delivery gets really, really boring. The rest of the time he slips and slides somewhere in the middle.

But when he's really good, the content is really good. Maybe some of the best ever and it shows up in record sales, but I don't know if eight million white suburban kids are buying his records because of his talent (doubtful) or due to his devil-may-care attitude, sense of humor and desire to murder his ex-wife.

The problem with Eminem is that he's incredibly self-aware that everyone sees him as a white rapper in a black game and that he sells a ton of records because he is the white rapper in a black game.

And he's a bitter son of a bitch. He hates his mother, his ex-wife and himself for bringing a child into all of this mess. He hates the record companies, execs, fans, media, Internet, parents, right wingers and any music artist that he deems lame or who has dissed him.

All of this taints his music and gives it a harsh glaze that's impossible to just overlook. He takes an entire song to attack the two doofuses behind the Insane Clown Posse, a very vulgar and untalented Detroit rap group that apparently took time to "dis" Eminem. So the natural thing to do is strike back at a band that only 10 percent of the American population has heard and only two percent actually like. In fact, including this song on his record probably made the Insane Clown Posse more money than they could do on their own touring and releasing records.

Other times, Eminem severely dates himself and his record. He mentions The Tom Green Show for crying out loud. Also Limp Bizkit, Britney Spears and all of the boy bands that ruled the charts in 1999. All of whom are distant memories and if it wasn't for Eminem rapping about them, they'd never be remembered.

The other problem with Eminem is the persona he wants to create and the persona that he actually has in the media. The one that exists is a hard-edge, who-gives-a-fuck asshole from the hard streets of Detroit, who has had nothing handed to him and worked for every cent that he's earned.

But take a look at the liner notes from "The Marshall Mathers LP." This is not the same Eminem. The cover shows a broken Eminem laying prostrate in a dank alley, huddled under a jacket looking like a herion addict.

Dig deeper. Inside are photos from Eminem's youth: A wide-eyed, dorky-looking kid who doesn't look like he could hurt a fly, more or less force his wife into a trunk at knife point and drive her to a secluded spot to murder her. Other shots of Eminem show him pensive and contemplative. Other shots have him writing studiously in his notebook, jotting down those dope rhymes about how he gets blamed for everything, whilst nothing is ever his fault.

Maybe Eminem has a severe personality disorder.

Or maybe he has the best sense of humor in the world.