There Goes Gravity: A Life in Rock and Roll

by Robinson, Lisa

  Eight

  Starting around 1999, whenever I was in Los Angeles, I visited Jimmy Iovine at his house in Bel Air. I’d known him for years—first, in the 1970s, as the guy who brought coffee to John Lennon at the Record Plant, then as an engineer and producer for Patti Smith, Tom Petty and U2. By the end of the 1990s, Jimmy was the head of Interscope Records, and had signed Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, No Doubt, U2 and Eminem. In February of 2000, he started talking to me about the importance of Eminem. He compared him to Lenny Bruce. It turns out that many people think that there are many people like Lenny Bruce. Of course, there are not. Just being dirty, or cynical, isn’t enough to qualify. Even the original Lenny Bruce wasn’t what he’s been made out to be. He was brilliant, funny, outrageous—but he needs to be viewed in context: it was the 1960s. The only comparison I could see between Eminem and Lenny Bruce was that Eminem said things in his songs that people may have felt—or thought they felt—but would never say out loud.

  I hadn’t really followed Eminem’s career. I was aware of the jokey Slim Shady videos on MTV—when MTV still aired videos. They struck me as humor for kids. But in March 2000, when Jimmy played some songs for me from Eminem’s Marshall Mathers LP prior to its release, I was immediately drawn to the combination of lyrical skills and rage. It felt like punk rock. And at the time, I thought of what hardcore singer Jello Biafra had said: “Punk will never die until something more dangerous comes along to replace it.”

  Eminem’s lyrics, about incest, murder, rape and sodomy were described as a cross between South Park and Raging Bull. Apparently he was either the single most notorious character in popular music, or a genius. Or both. I started to investigate. I went to Interscope’s offices and looked through an entire storage room with boxes of magazine and newspaper articles about Eminem. He was called a sociopath, a master storyteller, white trash, brilliant, homophobic, misogynistic, antisocial, dysfunctional, touching, inventive, heroic, twisted. He was compared to T. S. Eliot, Robert Browning, Howard Stern, Mark Twain, Andrew Dice Clay, Rimbaud and yes, Lenny Bruce. I was intrigued.

  *

  I began to pay more attention to rap. Rick Rubin told me that when he started Def Jam Records in his NYU dorm room in 1982, “If you loved rap, you couldn’t understand how people could not love it.” Run DMC’s Darryl McDaniels has said, “I never in my wildest dreams ever thought that hip hop would be as big and as powerful and magnificent as it is. To me, it was just something that was big in my basement.” By the start of the 21st century, rappers had sold millions of records and infiltrated white suburban households. But big, white rock bands still filled stadiums on a regular basis, and the Grammys didn’t air the Rap category on their prime time, network telecast. When I saw Eminem perform “The Real Slim Shady” at the MTV Awards at Radio City Music Hall in September 2000, with dozens of Eminem look-alikes, I thought, here is a rock star. Once again, things had become boring and predictable. And I was, once again, attracted to the outsider, the misfit, the “rebel.” It would take four years before I sat down for a real talk with Eminem. In the meantime, I was hooked.

  *

  In February 2001, Lyor Cohen, who was then the head of Island Def Jam Records, told me I should meet Jay Z. We were at Petrossian restaurant on West 58th Street in New York, eating caviar. I asked Lyor, didn’t Jay stab someone? Lyor took out his phone, called Jay, and said, “I’m here with Lisa Robinson and I think you two should meet. But she’s afraid you’re going to stab her.” We arranged to go to a Knicks game on February 7th. On the way to Madison Square Garden, in his massive Escalade, Jay blasted Stevie Wonder songs and talked about the Motown and R&B music he had grown up hearing in his mother’s house. Backstage at the Garden, Jay waited a while until courtside seats were available; he wouldn’t sit anywhere else. We watched Dallas beat the Knicks and we talked basketball—about how it was a rhythm game and its similarities to hip hop. We talked about which basketball players listened to his music. And we talked about the Grammys. Jay said he and his fellow rappers continued to boycott the Grammys because the Rap category wasn’t shown on the telecast. After the game, we went to Nobu in Tribeca for dinner. For years afterwards, whenever I saw Jay, we talked about basketball more than we talked about music. It took about six years before he realized that I knew what I was talking about. “I thought you were just trying to humor the colored guy,” he told me. By the middle of the decade, Jay was a regular at the Grammys; the show had no choice but to air the rap awards. They needed stars like Jay and Kanye West and Eminem for ratings.

  *

  A few years later, Jay Z announced his “retirement” from recording and performing. He replaced Lyor Cohen (who went to run the Warner Music Group) as president of Island Def Jam. Both Rick Rubin and I asked Jay, why on earth would he want a job? We told him—you’re Jay Z—the guy Rick always referred to as “the coolest guy in the room.” Any room. One day, when I posed the job question again, Jay said that at the end of the deal, he would own his master recordings. Beyoncé had told me that Jay could just walk into a recording studio and rap on the spot; he never wrote anything down. I asked Jay how this worked. He said he didn’t like to write things down because he felt “the lines on the paper put the words in jail. It traps you in there. The first couple of times it’s difficult. I wrote one verse on my first album, but haven’t since. It’s just my process. Later on isn’t the problem—by then I’ve done them over and over. It’s the first couple of times doing it that’s the difficult part.”

  • • •

  With the exception of one year (2003) at Madison Square Garden, the Grammy Awards have been held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles for the last thirteen years. Backstage at the Grammy Awards is a high pressure, live TV situation. Dozens of major stars perform, present, win, or gracefully applaud on camera when they lose. Some have their own dressing rooms. Others are crammed together in shared spaces. First, before the actual show, there’s the red carpet—which has become a show in itself. The red carpet at these award shows is hysteria incarnate. The setup is much smaller than it appears on television. All the various entertainment shows and media outlets are crammed into individual two-by-four spaces that resemble tiny horse stalls. Fans and paparazzi are screaming their heads off. Stars often exit the dressing rooms inside the Grammy venue where they’ve been all day, and pretend to make a new entrance onto the red carpet. A publicist whisks them along a row of press and photo ops. Then, they’re escorted back inside to the relative peace of a dressing room. Many of them change outfits to either sit in the audience, or get ready to perform.

  In the 1990s, when the Grammys were held at Radio City Music Hall in New York, with an all-access pass, you could wander around at will. The dressing rooms were on four floors at either side of the stage. Perennial Grammy nominees like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey each had their own suites on the top floor. Lesser stars shared dressing rooms on lower floors. Backup singers and musicians were shmushed together in rooms in the basement. There were “green rooms” for stars to gather together—although few of them ever did. At some point in the late ’90s, I noticed an “alcohol free” room. I never saw anyone in there. The laminated pass hierarchy started with “Talent”—which allowed you to go anywhere—and went all the way down to “Working Press,” who were restricted to media rooms in the basement. A small makeup touch-up room for those going onstage was behind one side of the stage; another makeup room was on the other side for the host of the show. At Radio City, to get from one side of the stage to the other, you took an elevator down to the basement, walked around a huge maze, and then took the elevator back up to the other side. Or, you could walk behind a scrim on the stage in the dark—and risk possible injury as you stepped over a labyrinth of wires and cables. There were many times I stood in the wings to watch the show. After years of covering this event for the New York Post, I could have found my way around Radio City’s backstage wearing a blindfold.

 
; When the Grammys were in Los Angeles, I got to know the lay of the land first at the Shrine Auditorium, and then, at what now appears to be the Grammys’ permanent home, the Staples Center. The dressing rooms at Staples are all on the same level. They wind along a hallway that houses the locker rooms for the sports teams. Award shows from Los Angeles start in the middle of the afternoon. This way, the broadcast to the real world—New York—is in prime time. Dress rehearsals are in the morning, the parties go on well into the night, and the whole thing becomes an all-day endurance test. By 2008, after years of working the Grammy backstage, the thrill was gone. I put on high heels and went to watch the show at Doug Morris’ private viewing parties.

  • • •

  In 2001, Eminem had been slammed for homophobic lyrics by gay rights groups, Lynne Cheney (wife of the then Vice President Dick Cheney) and members of Congress. Eminem anticipated a boycott by gay rights groups at the Grammys, so he suggested—almost as a joke—that the only way he’d perform was with Elton John. Eminem’s manager, Paul Rosenberg, and Jimmy Iovine were on the phone with him when he suggested it. Paul and Jimmy paused. Then Jimmy said, “You know what? I know him. Let me call him and ask.” Elton, who came out in the late 1970s, has a long history of supporting gay rights and runs a big AIDS charity. He thought the protest was ridiculous and immediately agreed to do the performance. So, in 2001, while I still was involved in what I referred to as Grammy “combat duty,” I stood in the wings at the side of the stage at Staples Center with my friend, the Interscope executive Dennis Dennehy. And we watched Eminem and Elton perform “Stan.” Eminem opened the show, sitting on a bed, singing the verse to “Stan.” Then the curtain rose, with Elton—who sang the chorus—at the piano. It was an amazing moment. (Bono would have called it very punk rock.) I found it very moving. And it instantly shut everybody up.

  • • •

  In the 1970s, I spent a lot of time with Elton John. We traveled on his plane—the same one I’d been on with Led Zeppelin and the Stones. I often went backstage before his shows to visit him and check out his elaborate wardrobe. His ensembles were completely over the top: a Donald Duck costume, sparkly suits and glittery platform boots from the famous London shop Mr. Freedom. In July 1976, backstage in Washington, D.C., I commented on how much stuff he carted around. “Oh who doesn’t?” Elton said. “You can’t tell me that Frank Zappa doesn’t take a lot with him. He probably wears all this all the time”—his arm swept around at the racks of multi-colored outfits—“and then changes into a t-shirt and jeans when he goes onstage.” Several days later, we were in Philadelphia, where because of his hit song “Phildelphia Freedom,” he was getting the keys to the city. As the mayor introduced him, Elton whispered to me, “Could you see Keith Richards doing this?” In his dressing room, he proudly showed off his handbag collection to his friend Elizabeth Taylor. She shrieked with pleasure. He dragged me into a bathroom to talk about Iggy and Bette Midler and how great they both were. (To this day, Elton is among the first to know about a promising new band or singer.) I had never written about Elton’s homosexuality because he hadn’t publicly said anything about it. When he finally did come out, he talked to me at length about being “bisexual.” He told me how moved he was by the letters he’d received from people who told him how frightening their lives were and how much he helped them by coming out. I was always surprised that no one wrote about how dishy and funny he was. He referred to the summer of the Bicentennial as the “Bisexual.” Celebrities who came to his shows included Shirley MacLaine, Peter Frampton and Patti Smith. Patti told Elton she was sorry that she had said bad things about him in interviews, but that she loved, and masturbated to, his records.

  *

  In 1977, Elton told me he stopped taking drugs. He hadn’t, as he admitted years later. He said that at first, becoming a star was like winning the lottery. Everything was excessive, over the top. He went to unbelievable extremes. He knew he was flamboyant, yet he never thought he was glamorous. He thought he was ridiculous. But he said he had to get it all out of his system, that he was having a ball. For someone who became so rich, so grand, so ultimately troubled with drink and drugs, his heart was always in the right place. So, while people who didn’t know him might have thought his Grammy performance with Eminem was bizarre, or a publicity stunt, I knew it was just Elton stepping up to support someone whose talent he considered important. Watching the two of them from the side of the stage, I was mesmerized. And, as always when I see something I think is great, everything else seemed old fashioned.

  After the 2001 Grammy show, when I sat with Dr. Dre, Bono and Eminem at Doug Morris’ party, I had told Eminem that it was just as well he lost the Album of the Year Grammy to Steely Dan, because there was something to be said about not getting that mainstream stamp of approval. (Years later, Paul Rosenberg told me Eminem hadn’t even known what Steely Dan meant. When he found out, his response was, “I lost to a dildo?”) I asked Eminem that night if he read books. He said no. Where does this all come from? I asked. Dre said, “To this day, whenever he sits in front of me in the studio, he surprises me. Every time. I’m waiting for the lights to dim in the room.” (Eight years later, Eminem would tell me, “I did well in English at school, and I’ve always had a large vocabulary. Plus, by the time I was eighteen, I’d probably read the dictionary front to back ten times.”)

  *

  In 2002, Annie Leibovitz wanted to do a photo of Eminem. We were going to run it in our Vanity Fair music issue. I thought it would be historic if we added Dr. Dre and Rakim (of Eric B. and Rakim) to the picture: three generations of hip hop. At that time, Dre was working on a Rakim solo album, and I knew that Rakim was one of Eminem’s heroes. I thought that if we did the three of them together, it might actually get done. Still, as I would learn, anything having to do with Eminem and Dre would take at least a year to accomplish. Eminem didn’t like leaving Detroit unless it was to go on tour or to record in L.A. with Dre. It took months to get in touch with Rakim—who wouldn’t fly, so it was an additional problem getting him to L.A. Eventually Jimmy Iovine, who ran the record label for all three, suggested doing the photo at his house. This way, he said, they wouldn’t turn it down.

  On May 31, 2002, Annie, her crew, Dennis Dennehy, Paul Rosenberg, Dr. Dre, Rakim, and various others assembled at Jimmy’s house. We waited a long time for Eminem to show up. When he did, he was accompanied by Shady Records executive Marc Labelle, and his best friend, the Detroit MC Proof. Eminem introduced himself to the stylist and Annie’s crew as “Marshall” and then went to take a shower. Proof played pool in Jimmy’s den. Some of us sat on the patio outside. Dre looked around and said to Jimmy, “This is a nice house.” Jimmy replied, “You paid for it.” Annie set up a studio downstairs to take a tight portrait of the three hip hop stars. A bootleg tape from a live Bob Dylan concert was on the boombox that Annie’s crew carried with them. I realized that at any moment, this music might put these guys to sleep—so I asked Marc Labelle to go out to his car to get more appropriate CDs. After the shoot, Dre and Eminem discussed what Eminem’s next single should be (I voted for “Cleanin’ Out My Closet”). Eminem came over to say goodbye. “Thanks. That was fun,” he said, deadpan. I appeared startled. “I’m kidding,” he said, and then smiled. Barely.

  *

  On November 6, 2002, 8 Mile opened at the Mann Village Theater in Westwood, Los Angeles. The movie was based on Eminem’s life. He was in every scene, and you could not take your eyes off him. At the party following the premiere, Eminem stood in a roped-off VIP section. Dr. Dre and I walked up to him. “Ahhh,” Dre said, “the movie star.” Eminem gave me that hip hop, leaning into my shoulder, clasping my hand, half-hug that caught me off guard; I had no idea how it was supposed to go. I asked him if he had any idea how good he was in the movie. “No,” he said, staring at me.

  After the enormous success of 8 Mile, Paul Rosenberg and Jimmy Iovine agreed that I should interview Eminem. Paul Rosenberg is a cigar
-smoking, sneaker-wearing, six-foot-five, bearded man. When I first met him, I thought he was intimidating, even slightly scary. He reminded me of Zeppelin’s manager Peter Grant, without the groupies and the drugs. Intensely devoted to Eminem, Paul had a permanent poker face. He took everything in and said very little. He was often accompanied by a bodyguard. When I got to know him and we became friends, we shared a love of the Clash and of (his alma mater) Michigan State basketball, and its coach, Tom Izzo. Still, even with Paul and Jimmy and Eminem all on board, it took over six months to get the story underway. I wanted to talk to Eminem and to the three men I felt were the most important in his life: Paul, Dr. Dre and Proof.

  In June 2004, Paul and I began a series of talks that eventually filled 150 pages of transcript. On June 30th, I went to the office of Shady Records (Paul and Eminem’s label) and Goliath Artists (Paul’s management company). The office, which took up an entire floor, was in a nondescript building in Soho. There was no sign on the door. I was let in by a large security guard named Craig Barnes. (When I got to know him better, we would argue about football and his beloved Dallas Cowboys—a team I loathed.) The first thing I noticed in the office was a Mountain Dew soda machine. The walls were lined with platinum records for The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show. There were plaques for other Shady and Goliath artists: Obie Trice, 50 Cent, D12, Cypress Hill. Framed photos of Dr. Dre hung on the wall, along with hip hop magazine covers and Paul’s law degree. The bathroom had a Sex Pistols poster and one for the Sid and Nancy movie. An industrial-sized bottle of Listerine was on the sink. On the desk in Paul’s corner office was a sculpture of two fists and some brass knuckles. Lined up against the wall were fifty-six unopened boxes of sneakers.

  In the first of several long talks, Paul told me he was raised in a middle-class Jewish household in a Detroit suburb. His mother was a music teacher at his synagogue, and his father played the clarinet. As a teenager, Paul fell in love with break dancing and rap, and eventually became a rapper. He formed a group called the Rhythm Cartel. “My name was Kid Swift,” he said, “and my friend Jake was Skinny Supreme. We were okay, not great. I was adequate.” Paul said that he was almost an outcast for liking rap among his Van Halen–loving peers. But, he said, “I was totally obsessed. I always watched what was going on behind the scenes. I knew who Russell Simmons was, and I’d always pay attention to what Rick Rubin was doing. A white Jewish guy, producing rap records in the 1980s? It was bizarre.” Coming from a family of doctors and lawyers, Paul was expected to be one or the other. He went to law school with the dream of becoming an entertainment lawyer; and he wanted to take the Detroit hip hop artists he loved and make them his clients.