When confronted, the "artist" gives the tired rap party-line about writing character sketches, and (like rap-metal peers Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst) turns typically disingenuous when issues of role-model responsibility are raised. What a gem.
Let's be clear: Eminem doesn't have a God-given right to free speech. That power comes from the society that grants it, and the society that chooses to (or chooses not to) buy his records. Historically, the freedom in our inalienable right to expression and assembly was aimed at its application, not its unqualified content. It pertains to everybody, whether they're talentless rappers, career politicians, boneheaded radio deejays, or a music writer whose brother just happens to be gay. Nowhere does it suggest that advocating violence and hatred is at the heart of a free society.
But if we let the hatemongers define our terms, then given the utter lack of artistic worth Eminem and patron Dr. Dre have concocted here--squeaking out rapid-fire nonsense in a helium voice against turgid bass lines and nursery-rhyme keyboard melodies does not constitute innovation--this Carolina boy would just as soon apply some Southern justice to his Caucasian ass for capital crimes against music. How's that? Now where's my rope, Maw?