"The Way I am" - Eminem launching his book in NY

[Steve Dii]

He is the rap artist of his generation. One of the most controversial performers of our time.

He's been silent for four years... until now....

He is at Interscope Records studio right now launching his new book, The Way I am.

Eminem tells some in his autobiography

By Martin Caballero
Monday, October 20, 2008 - Updated 1h ago

Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?
“The Way I Am,” Eminem’s splashy new $40 coffee-table book is part autobiography, part archival history. It’s an attempt to reveal the “real” Marshall Mathers through pictorial sketches and commentary.

​

But after four extremely personal albums, can it measure up to his music?

As a visual history of Mathers’ life and career, “The Way I Am” (Dutton Adult) is both thorough and fascinating. The catalog of backstage pictures, images of his home life and studio sessions are exhaustive. But the most captivating inclusions are the handwritten lyric sheets from some of his most famous tracks. Reproductions of lyrics for such songs as “Lose Yourself” and “Stan” appear like an artist’s canvas, exploding with ideas, concepts and verses beyond the margin, and revealing the most direct insight into Eminem’s creative process yet seen.


As a writer, Mathers steers readers through his rap beginnings in Detroit, the fateful meeting with Dr. Dre that launched his career, and the challenges of branching out into acting and producing. Along the way he drops details that ardent fans will appreciate. He shows flashes of insight and more than a bit of self-deprecation, but also sounds surprisingly detached at times.


What’s most revealing - and most dissapointing - is what Mathers chooses not to include in the book. You won’t learn anything of his ex-wife Kim or his mother Debbie, whose own book has been timed to coincide with the release of her son’s (see story nearby). The details of his sudden departure from the “Anger Management Tour” in 2005, ostensibly due to exhaustion but later attributed to a sleeping pill addiction, are nowhere to be found.


Nor are details about his beefs with rival rappers. He does, in the preface, discuss the 2006 murder of longtime friend and rhyme partner Proof. But for someone so unafraid to reveal his inner turmoil in his music, Eminem’s book seems determined to avoid the rapper’s most intriguing personal stories.
“The Way I Am” is probably motivated more by the need to reignite Em’s career after a difficult four-year layoff than anything else. During a book-release party Wednesday in New York, he finally provided some details about his long-awaited fifth solo album, “Relapse,” which is expected to be in stores by the end of this year. The fact that he’s launching his comeback with a book says something: “The Way I Am” is simply a visual companion piece - albeit an impressive one - to Eminem’s music. It’s there that you’ll find his real life story, one he tells better in rhyme than on paper.

Source: Eminem tells some in his autobiography - BostonHerald.com