news archives

January 24, 2005 - Star magazine spoke with Eminem's grandmother Betty Kresin after complaints in the press from Sarah Mathers, who says she is the rapper's half-sister and Em refuses to meet her. "I don't blame Marshall for being skeptical of these 'Johnny-come-latelies," Kresin said. "They twist it to make it seem like Marshall is the bad guy for nto wanting to establish relationships with them, but why should he?" Kresin added, "Now that he's a multimillionaire, everyone who has any sort of family connection wants a piece of him." 

January 24, 2005 - Benzino is out with the video to his new single 'Look Into My Eyes', a response to Eminem's 'Like Toy Soldiers'. Watch it online at Launch.com.

January 24, 2005 - 50 Cent tells XXL magazine that he doesn't think Eminem is being realistic when he raps about the hip hop community to end their beefs on his new single 'Like Toy Soldiers'. "I don't think Em is realistic," 50 said. "On certain levels, he's being logical. Anybody, like I said, would want to avoid those type of situations. Em's seeing if it's possible to not have these issues. Why? Because he makes hit records."

January 24, 2005 - Source magazine co-owner Dave Mays was doing an interview at Detroit's WDTJ-FM discussing the upcoming copyright infringement lawsuit that Eminem filed against the publication for releasing the lyrics, when Eminem and a group of approximately 10 men came to the station. MTV News reports that there was a heated exchange of words between Mays and Eminem, but the confrontation did not escalate. "I wasn't expecting for him to show up; he doesn't go anywhere in public," Mays told MTV News. "Nobody ever sees this guy. People were like, 'Is it really him? I don't understand what his purpose was. I'm up there by myself, he had all his people." Read more.

January 24, 2005 - Ray Benzino insists to The New York Daily News that the shooter in Eminem's new video 'Like Toy Soldiers', who kills D-12's Proof, "is supposed to be me." The Source magazine co-owner also takes offense at Eminem's referring to him as "a 'receptionist.' He's still being a disrespectful little fu**." Benzino fumed, "[Eminem] is a coward and pussy. If he and I are ever face to face, I'm going to smack the sh** out of him." Read more.

January 17, 2005 - Ken Barnes of USA Today took part in an online chat with readers and was asked about his thoughts on Eminem's latest effort 'Encore'. "Saleswise it's doing OK, and airplay is growing for both 'Mockingbird' (although that may be over on radio pretty quick) and now 'Like Toy Soldiers,'" Barnes said. "Critically he's been bashed, in my opinion too harshly, as if critics feel they need to make up for praising him so lavishly on his first three albums, so they demolish this one (which I think is not an advance and a bit of a disappointment but still full of clever bits and dazzling wordplay and delivery) with sledgehammers." Read the entire chat here.

January 17, 2005 - Billboard reports that Green Day returned to the top of the U.S. pop charts Wednesday with its hit opus 'American Idiot', selling 100,167 copies, just 178 copies more than Eminem's reigning champ 'Encore'. Read more.

January 17, 2005 - Rolling Stone caught up with The Game for a Q&A and asked the G-Unit rapper if there is resentment in hip-hop that a white dude -- Eminem -- is running the game. "White, black, Asian -- I don't give a fu**, man," Game responded. "Everybody thinks it's so bizarre because a white kid has never been at the top of hip-hop's food chain. Eminem's a talented motherfu**er, and nobody can fu** with the white dude." Read more.

January 17, 2005 - Eminem spoke with XXL magazine about the decision to release 'Mosh' just ahead of the U.S. presidential election back in late October. "I do got a little bit of regrets about that," Slim said of the last-minute release. "We got it out there as soon as we could. It was one of the first songs we mixed. We were trying to get 'Just Lose It' out there. We didn't want to get 'Mosh' out there and come off too political."

January 3, 2005 - Eminem's rep at Interscope shot down reports that the rapper splurged $114,000 on skin care products on a trip to the UK. "It's completely, completely untrue. There's no reason anybody would buy $100,000 worth of skin products," the rep insisted. "Even if he was just gift shopping, that's just ridiculous." The rep added with a laugh: "I don't think he would have been shopping for beauty products, unless Niketown is selling makeup."

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