Eminem 60 Minutes Full Interview

{'type': u'plain'}

His real name is Marshall Mathers,

but you probably know him as Eminem.

He's the biggest selling artist
of the past decade

earning 11 Grammys, 1 Oscar,

and mountains of criticism for lyrics

that are as profane as they are poetic

Whether you are a fan of rap or not,

Eminem's life story is an extraordinary tale
of success against all odds

A story he hasn't talked much about,
until now.

We met up with him
in his hometown Detroit,

in order to find out how a white kid,

who never made it past the ninth grade

was able to propel himself to the top

of a predominantly
African-American art form.

(Clock ticking)

The story will continue in a moment.

(Music playing)

When Eminem stepped out of the shadows

last month in Detroit
in front of 40,000 people,

It was a triumphant comeback for a superstar,
who had all but disappeared. (Music)

At 37, sober after struggling with
addiction for the past 5 years,

Eminem has the energy and intensity
of a boxer. (Eminem - Not Afraid)

A fighter trying to win from the crowd,
one simple thing:

Eminem: "Respect."
A. Cooper: "Respect?"

Eminem: "Respect. You know,
not so important now

but I felt like the fighter coming up

man, I felt like, you know, I'm being attacked
for this reason, for that reason and,

I've gotta fight my way through this."

He's been fighting since he was a kid,
living on the rough side of Detroit's 8-mile,

the road dividing the white suburb from
the mostly black city.

8 Miles, also the title of the
critically acclaimed movie Eminem starred in,

his character based largely on himself,

an aspiring white rapper
with a dead end job,

a troubled mother, and a dream
of escaping his bleak life.

AC: "I mean, you still come back here?"
Eminem:"Yeah"

To understand how Eminem got
to where he is today,

you need to know where he came from.

Not just a broken home,
but a series of them.

Raised by a single mom,
they lived hand to mouth,

on and off welfare, constantly moving
from one place to another

AC:"So you had to change schools
every couple of months?"

E: "Yeah, I would change schools
2-3 times a year,

And that was probably the roughest part."

The roughest, and most formative.
He was a shy kid in tough public schools,

and was frequently bullied.

AC: "You got beat up a lot as a kid?"

Eminem: "Yeah, there was a lot of instances..."

AC: You got beat up
coming home from school?"

Eminem: "Beat up in the bathroom,
beat up in the hallways,

shoved into lockers, you know.

For the most part, man you know,
just being the new kid."

He discovered rap as a teenager,

and in its tough talk
and street smart sound,

found his voice.

(Eminem rapping)

After dropping out of high school,
he began competing in local rap battles,

depicted in the movie,
one-on-one verbal fights

where the goal was to come up with
the cleverest rhymes and the best insults.

Hip hop, it has always been about
bragging and boasting ,

and I am better than you at this
and I am better than you at that,

and I finally found something that
'Yeah this kid over here, you know,

he may have more chicks,
he may have better clothes or whatever,

but he can't do this like me.
You know what I mean,

he can't write what I am writing right now

and it started to feel like, you know,

'May be Marshall's getting
a little respect.'

That respect was a hard one.

He was often the only white guy competing
in underground clubs like this one.

AC: "Did you feed off the fact that,
people may be underestimated you,

or didn't respect you early on?"

Eminem: "Oh, definitely. I think that,

you know, there was certainly like a
rebellious, youthful rage, kind of, in me,

and there was also, you know, the fact of,

the no getting away from fact that, I am white,

and this is predominantly black music.

and people tellin' me, you don't belong,
you are not going to succeed,

because you are this color.

Then you wanna show these people
that you can and you will.

Ever since Eminem broke out
from the underground and

into the mainstream in 1999,

he's amazed audiences and critics alike,

with his ability to tell
stories through music, (Music)

and rapid fire word-play. (fast rapping)

He writes his own songs and
delights in rhyming words others can't.

(rapping)

Eminem: "So, I would start out slow..."

We talked to him about how he does it
in his private recording studio.

AC: "I've heard you say that
you bend the words."

Eminem: "Yeah, is just in the
enunciation of it

like people say that, the word orange
doesn't rhyme with anything.

And that kinda pisses me off

because I can think of a lot of things
that rhyme with orange.

AC: "What rhymes with orange?"

Eminem: If you're taking the word
at face value, and just say orange,

nothing is gonna rhyme with it exactly.

If you enunciate it and make it,
like more than one syllable, orange,

you could say it like:

"I put my orange, 4-inch door hinge
in storage, in a porridge, with George...

just had to figure out the science to
breaking down words and try to..."

AC: "And do you think about this
throughout the day?"

I mean, you're driving along and
you think about rhyming words?"

Eminem: "Yeah, all day. I actually
drive myself insane with it"

AC: "But, unusually for a guy
who hated school,

who was in he 9th grade 3 times,

you spend all your time
thinking about words?"

Eminem: I found it, no matter
how bad I was in school,

no matter how low my grades mighta been,

sometimes, I always was good at English.

AC: I heard that you used to
read the dictionary."

Eminem: I just felt like, I wanna be able
to have all these words at my disposal,

in my vocabulary, at all times,
whenever I need to pull em out,

somewhere they'll be stored,
locked away..."

His words are stored but
not exactly locked away.

He actually keeps them in boxes.

AC: "You store stuff in
chests and boxes like this?"

Eminem: "Yes."

Inside are hundreds of scraps of paper,

in which he's obsessively scrawled down
words and phrases.

AC: "This is a pad from
a hotel in Paris, looks like.

and you just scribble like some
4 little words or something like.

How do you even read this,
this is tiny."

E: "I know what it says. It says, I guess

I don't think that,
I might use that, actually."

They're not lyrics really,
they're just ideas that he collects.

He calls it 'Stacking Ammo'.

E: "So its just, like, when I feel..."

AC: "I've done some stuff
with some crazy people

and they kind of look like this."

E: "Yeah?"

AC Sometimes, either they're all
in capital letters or

sort of scrawled on pages like this."

E: "Well, that's probably
because I'm crazy."

Listen to the lyrics of
many of his early songs

and you do get the feeling, his music has been
a painfully public way of settling score.

Including with his mother,

and his father who left him
when he was 6 months old.

E: "I never knew him, so..."

AC: You never met him?"

E: "Never met him, never knew him..."

AC: "You want to, or..."

E: "I don't know, I don't know.

Some people ask me that,
I don't think I do.

I just... I can't understand how,

if my kids move to the edge of the Earth,

I'd find them. No doubt in my mind.

No money, no nothing.
If I had nothing, I'd find my kids.

So there's no excuse."

Eminem may be fiercely protective of his kids,

but he's been accused of being harmful
to just about everybody else's.

The language he's used in songs
spark protests and accusations

that he promoted violence
against women and gays.

He's been branded
a misogynist and a homophobe.

E:"I felt like I was being attacked"

AC: "Like you were being singled out."

E: "I was being singled out,
and I felt like, is it because

of the color of my skin? Is it because
of that you're paying more attention?

Because there's certain rappers that
do and say the same things that I'm saying

and I don't hear no one saying
anything about that.

I didn't just invent
saying offensive things."

AC: "Some of the lyrics, like you know

In the song Kill You, you're saying
'Bitch, I'mma kill you',

'You don't wanna f- with me.'

You say 'My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge.

That'll stab you in the head,
whether you're a fag or lez,

Hate fags?The answer's 'yes'.'

E: "This scene that I came up in.
That word was thrown around so much

you know, "faggot" was like thrown around
constantly to each other, like in battling.

Do you not like gay people?
E: "No, I don't have any problems with nobody.

You know what I mean like,
I'm just, whatever."

AC:"And for, you know, some parent who is
listening to this says, 'Well, you know,

my kid hears this, hears you
calling somebody bitch or using the f-word

and starts to use it themselves.'

Do you feel a sense of responsibility?

E: "I feel like its your job to parent them.

If you're the parent, be a parent,
you know what I mean,

I'm a parent, I've had daughters.

I mean, how would I really
sound as a person,

like walking around my house, you know

'Bitch, pick this up...'
You know what I mean, like

AC: That's not how you are
in your life."

E: "Profanity around my house, no

but this is music, this is my art.
This is what I do."

(Rapping)

Despite the controversy,
or maybe because of it,

he's sold more than
80 million albums worldwide.

He admits he had a hard time
adjusting to all the attention.

For much of his career he was
high during performances,

and eventually became addicted to
Vicodin, Valium and Ambien.

On December 2007, he overdosed,
collapsing in the bathroom of his home.

AC: "You almost died."

E: "Yeah. Definitely."

AC: "How close do you think
you were to dying?"

E: "They said 2 hours. If I would have
got to the hospital 2 hours later,

that would've been it.
Cuz my organs, everything

my kidneys, everything were failing,
everything were shutting down."

He's been sober 2 and a half years now,

but has had to teach himself
how to write again, rap again,

and even how to perform

as he told us hours before Detroit concert,
promoting his new album called Recovery.

AC: "So, this is your first US stadium concert
that you are sober?"

E: "Yeah, Yep."

AC: "Do you ever, you know,
when you look out

and you see 40,000 people
and they're all singing your song..."

E: "Crazy. I mean, you know...

an artist will say that
they get used to it,

but I think that they're
probably lying if they do.

Cuz you gotta be wowed, man,
you gotta be like,

you gotta be taken back by seeing
this many people and their faces and..."

AC: "Do you actually see their faces
when you are performing?"

E: "Oh yeah. Yeah I do now.

Before it was yeah,
was a big blur."

(Eminem in concert)
Everybody in here, tonight

who is an Eminem fan, man

I just want to take a minute out to say

Thank you. For the support that
you all have showed me.

For not giving up in me, that's some
real sh-t liking man.

Especially you Detroit, I love you.

This song is for you.

(Eminem-Not Afraid)

His songs are still deeply personal,

but some of the
hard edged anger has softened.

In his new song Not Afraid,
he offers a hand to those in need.

AC: "'Everybody come take my hand,
We'll walk this road together.'

10 years ago, could you have imagined
yourself rapping something like that?"

E: "Probably not. You know, I don't
want to go overboard with it,

but do I feel like, if I can help people
that've been through a similar situation

then you know, why not?

(Music)

(Clock ticking)

Go to 60MintuesOvertime.com
to go backstage and behind the scenes

on the Eminem story with Anderson Cooper,
sponsored by Pfizer.