This one hit a bit close to home

Rating: 9/10 (15 September 2005)

I grew up in New York City just as rap was evolving into the art form we see today. I remember the breakthrough as if it were yesterday: it was 1979, disco was dying out, rock had yet to come back, and music generally sucked. The #1 songs from Billboard that year -- "My Sharona" from The Knack" topped the charts for several weeks, for God's sake -- were from hunger. Music needed a fresh new voice, and rap was just the ticket. "Rapper's Delight" from the Sugarhill Gang actually cracked the Billboard Top 40 (it hit #37), and I still can sing all 15 minutes of the song, usually without error. That's the point: I'm WHITE. So were many of my private school and upper-east-side friends who also knew all the lyrics.
We weren't "eight miles" away from the other side of the tracks, but about four or five from the South Bronx, where rap was born. Debbi Harry's "Rapture" was an homage to her obviously many trips on the #4 train to and from the Village (for example, the lyrics "Flash is fast, Flash is cool" referred to Grandmaster Flash, while "Fab Five Freddy" also got props in what is actually the first rap song to hit #1). Because of this, I can relate to what it's like to be a white rapper, even now. Eminem, the king of the white rappers, works in this film because he has the same "street cred" that my peers and I sought by taking rap seriously when no one associated it with whites.
The movie "8 Mile" tells the story of "B. Rabbit," a Detroit-based rapper with a crappy job, who lives in a trailer park with his mother, and who dreams of the day he can get his demo produced and get out of the slums. He's hard-working (unlike his peers) and also realistic (he talks of living "down here" rather than "up there"). Like many working stiffs, he defines himself not by his work, but his hobbies. He begins the film by losing a "rap battle" (a freestyle rap competition), and suffers the humiliation of being "not white, but white with a mic." Racial tensions fly, along with the occasional bullets, but the main weapon of choice for these "gangstas" are their lyrics, which they all know can lead to riches.
The "villain" of the film is "Papa Doc," the leader of the "free world" rap group, and the reigning rap battle champion. Papa Doc has street cred, and Rabbit wants to take it from him for his "crew." Mekhi Pfeifer turns in his usually grating performance as "Future," and one has to wonder about his motivations (watch "Scary Movie 3" for a humorous statement of the obvious from Anthony Anderson). Rabbit is troubled, conflicted, but his trials and tribulations are meshed together in a way that every artist can only hope for.
One thing I've always liked about Eminem is that he's not a white rapper trying to be black, but that he puts a "white" spin on rap, mocking his race's perception as more grammatically correct, less "gangsta" and always the racial underdog. For example, his line "notice that this man did not have his hands up" in the final battle would have been spoken differently (but not inferior in any way) by a black rapper. Somehow, he manages to do this without appearing racist, but rather a mere product of his upbringing.
This movie's main objective is to show the world of hard-core rap to a mainstream audience, and I can't imagine anyone watching this film while paying attention and not understanding the culture, at least on a surface level, by the end.
One other note: Brittany Murphy stunk, as usual.