Month: February 2007

Let me give you a little foretaste of Van Dyke And Harper music. Ready for a ride with a king of horrorcore? Let s go!
King Gordy is certainly Detroit s shock value. Representing the Entity and all things people usually love to hate, King Gordy doesn t shy away from showing a harsh, scary image of a horny, devilish himself. Sensitive souls might not like him, but King Gordy is nevertheless a gifted emcee with a widespread imagination.
Hammering piano sounds combined with soft flute notes are interrupted by mighty drum beats. Welcome to the merciless world of drug dealers in which one can get killed in no time. King Gordy s sharp voice operates like a sharp lancet on an hospital operation table and will leave his victims lifeless. King Gordy will always manage to make his listener feel unsafe and his stories strangely recall a Franz Kafka universe.
Come With Me is King Gordy s personal invitation to come and visit the streets of Detroit City. Hardcore as hell, the music leads you into a quite loud atmosphere that is enhanced by trumpet and bass sounds. King Gordy fully masters flows and lyrics. Sex, drugs and pimping are part of the picture.
Getting Paid introduces you into a quite pessimistic atmosphere. It describes the harsh struggling atmosphere of an emcee trying to survive and to make it on the local scene. Scratches sounds, violins, flute and keyboard sounds undeline the fighting ambience of the song.
Howl At The Moon starts on light piano sounds that totally contrast with the electric guitar notes and King Gordy s rough voice. Be prepared for some real scary moments during which King Gordy mutates to a wearwolf.
Take a look at King Gordy here.
Copyright ©2007 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights reserved

Here is another beautiful pic, drawn by Brian Stepp, representing Nathan Mathers, who just celebrated his 22nd birthday two days ago.
Happy belated birthday to Nathan:)

P.S: please don t steal that pic that has been published with the author s exclusive permission for promotional purposes. Thank you.

Although Eminem and Kim s rocky relationship has made the headlines very often, Kim Mathers has been quite discrete about her privacy all over the years. In fact, it seems like she wrote a letter to the Detroit Free Press once, in 2000, in order to clarify things from her point of view. She also phoned Mojo in the Morning a couple of times, in 2002 and in 2006.
Her recent appearance on ABC channel belongs to the rare moments Kim expressed publicly about her private life with Eminem.
First of all, I think that Kim deserves respect for her discretion, because most performers wives would have prompted to sell any personal info to the tabloids. Yea, well, it is true that the tabloids are not really Kim Mathers best friends.
The scandal press has often spread a quite demeaning image of Kim, exposing her personal mistakes, her suicide attempt, her addiction problems and her sudden disparition in 2003, publicly.
It might be useful to view the problem from Kim s side. Kim has had a real rough childhood. She run away from an alcoholics home with her twin sister and became Marshall s foster sister at the tender age of 12, when Debbie Mathers decided to take care of her as her own child.
Kim s numerous disputes with Marshall as a kid suddenly turned into love. She was only 13 when she started dating him.
Her relationship with Marshall, a mixture of passion and hatred, always on and off, turned into a real nightmare when Eminem raised to the top as an artist.
Dealing with Eminem s fame wasn t really Kim s cup of tea.
Infidelities are never easy to cope with within a couple, but imagine your husband with thousands of groupies yelling after him and you perfectly know your rivals are likely to pop up at each after party? That can be described as a living nightmare!
This is actually the unpleasant situation Kim had to deal with on a daily basis, not to name the infamous exposure of her husband in different magazines on other women s side. Would you like it? I know I d loathe it!
But mentioning infidelities, Kim should have the honesty to admit she also cheated on her ex husband. I also felt like she wanted to appear a little bit too much victimized.
I listened to Kim s arguments carefully and I think she actually made some valid points regarding her stormy relationship with her ex husband.
However, I do think that neither her version of the facts, nor Eminem s should be regarded as the gospel truth.
Why? Because when a relationship doesn t work, there are usually two culprits who probably share 50% of their responsibilities. I am talking by experience.
Sometimes people love each other dearly and their relationship just doesn t work out.
From a personal point of view, I do consider that on the one hand, people should stop demonizing Kim, whether because they disapprove her actions or simply because they are mad at her (I know, Kim looks stunning at the moment and you probably cannot handle that fact. Poor little you full of rage and envy behind your keyboard, I really pity you.) Walk one mile in Kim s shoes, then you will be entitled to judge her.
On the other hand, I really think that some naive teenagers should stop idealizing Eminem and Kim s relationship. Em and Kim s story is far from being a fairy tale. It is the story of a man and a woman both coming from a harsh and dysfunctional background, who made tremendous efforts to make their relationship work without achieving any success.
It is made of tears and suffering. There is nothing to envy about it.
Love is powerful, but sometimes it just isn t enough to make a relationship work. This is my final impression of Kim s interview with ABC.
Eminem didn t want to express on the subject, in order to protect his kids privacy.
Feel free to add your comments. You have the right to disagree with my views, but please comment with respect. Any disrespectful comment, whether it is about me or Kim Mathers will be immediately removed.
Copyright ©2007 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights reserved

N.B: many thanks to my friend Donna who brought me those exclusive news and report:)
Feb. 2, 2007 Getting revenge against an ex isn’t just the stuff of movies and television dramas. Not only do many people fantasize about revenge when their relationships end, you might be shocked by just how many actually act on those fantasies.
New York divorce attorney Suzanne Bracker cautions couples about their dark impulses, but says that unfortunately, they don’t always listen.
Related: Men More Vengeful Than Women?
Eminem’s Ex-Wife Speaks Out
In every single case I have my clients tell me how he or she wants to exact revenge on their ex, Bracker said.
Bracker says that both ordinary people and celebrities want revenge against their former lovers. One person who says she experienced the devastating impact of a lover’s revenge is rapper Eminem’s ex-wife, Kim Mathers. Recently divorced for the second time, Mathers sat down for an exclusive interview with 20/20’s JuJu Chang to set the record straight about her bad girl image and her near 20-year love-hate relationship with the rap icon.
Constant Infidelities
Money is great, but it doesn’t make your husband stay at home with you, said Mathers. Or sleep in the same bed with you … Him being on the road and on tour … that was like the big one. I mean … constant infidelities, all the time, she said.
The difficult times were a far cry from the early years of the couple s relationship. When the two first met, Mathers was 13 years old and Eminem was 15. They were two kids from troubled families who vowed to always protect each other.
If he got kicked out, then I would walk the streets with him until he found a place to live, or if I got kicked out, he was always there for me. It was just a close connection, said Mathers.
But that connection suffered when Eminem found stardom as a rapper. When he hit, he hit big. Success transformed him into hip-hop royalty, and with fame, came trouble.
Tough Times
He would constantly try to belittle me and make me think, like, I should be grateful, basically, that he was with me, said Mathers.
Through two marriages, their volatile bouts of jealousy and revenge played out under the glare of the media. Eminem pistol-whipped a man he claims was kissing his wife, and was slapped with a weapons charge. Mathers’ public struggles with cocaine kept her in and out of court and rehab. And Mathers admits to having had her own affairs.
I had low self-esteem, she said. I just really wanted attention and love from somebody.
Couples therapist and author Terrence Real says men and women express revenge differently.
When women do seek revenge, it is often sexual revenge. With guys, it’s out-and-out harm, said Real.
I Was Humiliated
Mathers said she felt the most powerless in the summer of 2000, when Eminem called her a tramp in his song Kim. The graphic and violent lyrics, which Eminem says were never intended to be taken literally, depict him pretending to kill her.
I was embarrassed. I was humiliated. I cried,” said Mathers. This is supposed to be a man that loves me, and is supposed to protect me … from being hurt, and here he is disrespecting me in the worst way possible in front of millions of people, and in front of our kids, my family, my friends,she said.
But Mathers adds there was still more revenge to come. Soon after the song’s release, she says Eminem promised her he wouldn’t perform it at a hometown concert.

And sure enough, he decided to do that song, and not only perform the song, but use blow-up dolls to re-enact … me being choked … just [doing] disrespectful things to the blow-up doll and then [throwing] the doll into the crowd,said Mathers. Just watching everybody else singing the words and laughing, jumping around … I couldn’t take it.
Mathers says that the betrayal drove her right over the edge. I made it home, she said, and I went upstairs in my bathroom and I slit my wrists and ended up in the hospital.
Real says that performing the song was a clear example of an abuse of power on Eminem’s part. Well, it’s saying, I own you, I’m lord, you have no power, and I will do with you what I what I want to with you, he said.
Getting Past Revenge
Real says the most important lesson is that lovers’ revenge might sometimes feel good, but it’s never a winning solution.
Mathers believes she is finally free from the destructive cycle of jealousy and revenge. She’s now a suburban single mom, raising two daughters along with a niece and nephew, all the while working towards a career in interior design.
I am not trying to bash Marshall or make him look bad, [I] just, you know, want people to know, I am a person, too,”said Mathers. I am trying to move forward with my life.
Eminem provided this statement to “20/20” through a spokesperson:
For the sake of our children that we raise together, I have made a decision to not participate in matters such as this.

Kim speaks out on ABC about her stormy relationship with Em from her point of view.

I watched a captivating report on British Channel 4 on Saturday evening. It was about a theoretical scientist named Aubrey, a former Cambridge computer expert and biologist who has his own theory about defeating death.
According to Aubrey, immortality could possibly be reached by mankind if we took time to replace slight parts of our damaged body cells and replace them by healthy cells…I do simplify his theory on purpose, because I am not a scientist and I don t have any knowledge of Aubrey s predilection field.
For the same reasons previously mentioned above, I think that I won t enter the debate whether Aubrey is right, wrong, or simply a demented man. Honestly, I don t know and I will reserve my judgment for the moment.
Simply I would like to point out that true geniuses are often held for fools, because the great masses of people are often satisfied with mediocrity.
Each century needs its dreamers and visionaries, because people of exception are the ones who really make the world move and progress.
Don t get me wrong. I am not saying that Aubrey is one of them…I d just like to point out that people with outrageous dreams are often the most misunderstood in our society, because they have crazier and mightier visions that the average citizen.
Now I d like to address to each of my readers: if you could live for ever, would you make a clear choice in favor of immortality?
I think I would. Why? Because human life is too short and I would like to achieve as many goals as possible and once I d accomplish all of them, find new challenges.
I would like to make a difference in this world and make some positive contributions in my field of predilection: music journalism.
I think I would never have enough artists to review: there are always new sounds to discover and to describe, and plenty of amazing artists to interview.
I would like to live life as long as possible, in the best health conditions, and see what will happen in 150 years, for instance.
However, for the time being, it looks like immortality, mankind s oldest dream, belongs to the world of utopia.
It is much more reasonable and realistic to acknowledge that death is certain- unless an eccentric scientist comes up with a refreshing idea of fountain of eternity, challenging our certainty- at least within a heartbeat.
A more realistic and reachable goal is anti-aging, even though the media spread some big misconceptions about it. No need to buy expensive creams and make up, no need to take any special treatment.
The best way to defy anti aging (and I know scientists will agree with my theory) is to exercise as often as possible, to eat less and to privilege healthy food. Another factor, though, comes into play: it is your genes. You cannot change the genetic factor, but you can act on the previous factors mentioned above.
Why not try to achieve this realistic goal before thinking about eternal life?
Isn t it dangerous in the end to try to play God?
Hopefully, the future will bring us a realistic answer to that great metaphysical question.
Copyright 2007 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

Local rapper Juice, who beat Eminem in a 1997 rhyming battle and has been trying to make it pay ever since, takes a new tack.
Juice, front, with the Machine: Brian Felix, Tim Lincoln, Brian Abraham, Aaron Getsug, and Russoul
A. Jackson
By Miles Raymer
IF YOU WANT to see the exact moment Juice became an underground hip-hop legend, all you have to do is download it. When the Chicago MC squared off against Eminem, who was still a couple years from filthy rich and famous, for the freestyle title at the 1997 Scribble Jam — an annual event that’s sort of a cross between a hip-hop convention and a hip-hop World Cup — somebody was there to videotape it, and the footage is all over the Internet. (It’s also included on a DVD released by the Scribble Jam folks.) Juice and Em’s battle went for an unprecedented six overtime rounds. They took turns whipping up deadly disses off the tops of their heads, surrounded by a crowd of rabid hip-hop fiends who smelled blood. Em had already developed his trademark jittery, high-speed flow, but his machine-gun delivery and barrage of insults couldn’t ruffle his cool, methodical opponent. Moving in for the kill, Juice held up Em’s bottle of Bud and rapped, “Bitch, you do whatever I say, every rip.” If you take the first letter of each word — and a couple liberties with spelling — that gives you “Budweiser.”
Juice won that battle, but in the ten years since, he’s had little luck translating his freestyle notoriety into record sales. He’s put out a handful of albums, most recently All Bets Off in 2005, but none has made much of a splash. He says he’s ghostwritten raps for major-label stars, but since he won’t break the unwritten rule against naming names — that’d likely get him blacklisted — he can’t parlay that work into a deal of his own. Skills alone won’t make any rapper famous, except among the hardcore hip-hop faithful who cherish battle prowess over studio style — and since that audience isn’t too impressed by an MC who just claims he’s not reading preprepared lines in the booth, the few freestyle albums you’ll find are almost always live battle recordings. Getting on the pop charts requires an undefinable combination of technique, production, personality, and timing that makes improvising entire verses look simple by comparison. Not even Supernatural, widely considered the best freestyler ever, has managed to make the leap. “There hasn’t ever been a freestyle rapper who’s made great records,” says Juice, “other than Eminem.”
Many hip-hop fans don’t even have a clear idea what freestyling is. During the alleged freestyle segments on BET’s Rap City, for instance, someone from a rapper’s crew might jump on a mike and double the lines, making it obvious to any mildly attentive viewer that they’re written in advance. As a consequence, Juice says, an audience sometimes doesn’t realize he’s improvising until he starts working in references to the room. “When I start talking about that brick wall and that girl’s sick, y’all, then everybody believes it,” he says. “But when I don’t, people don’t believe it.”
Juice is still as hungry as he was when he battled Eminem, though, and he hasn’t stopped hunting for the approach that’ll translate into record sales — he says he’s confident he can move the kind of numbers 50 Cent does. For his latest attempt, he’s taking the possibly questionable route of releasing the least commercial-sounding music of his career. It might also be the best.
On his new DVD, Juice & the Machine: Live From the Party (available through banditproductions.com), he’s surrounded not by a trash-talking battle crowd but by what looks like a bunch of jazz geeks. Or rather, they are jazz geeks, mostly. Juice’s backing band came together last summer, when his manager and music director, Eric Sheinkop, threw himself a birthday party and decided to put together a group for the occasion that could improvise behind the MC. Sheinkop commissioned his friend Aaron Getsug, a young baritone saxophonist and AACM protege who’s worked with Ernest Dawkins and David Boykin, to assemble the musicians — the Machine’s original lineup also included keyboardist Brian Felix, drummer Brian Abraham, electric bassist Tim Lincoln, and a couple backup singers — and after only two rehearsals they were playing live in front of the cameras.
“I didn’t handpick guys that I normally played with,” Getsug says. “The band came together in a freak-of-nature way.” The members share a background in jazz, though they also fuck around with rock, reggae, and IDM, among other things. “We all have different reference points,” Felix says, “but can come together and communicate on a lot of different musical levels.” The music on Live From the Party is a smoothly bumping jazz-funk fusion that invites comparisons to mid-90s jazz crossover experiments by the likes of Guru and the Digable Planets, but it’s warmer, funkier, and more live sounding. The band runs frictionlessly — sometimes to a fault, slipping into a generic groove that wouldn’t sound out of place coming from the ceiling speakers at Urban Outfitters.
Getsug and the Machine have been practicing like crazy to prepare for the release party at Metro this Friday, their first public show. In the six months since the DVD was recorded, they’ve become a much tighter, more responsive group. They’re such a vital presence now, making audible connections between the improvising that happens in jazz and the improvising that happens in freestyling, that it’s hardly right to call them a backing band anymore. “They pick it up so quick, it’s like cogs moving,” says Juice. “The way I look at it,” Abraham says, “Juice is another soloist. He’s another instrument.”
The group has adapted some of the MC’s old tracks and started writing original material with him. The two backup singers are gone, replaced by Russoul, a past winner of V103 and WGCI’s Chicago Idol competition recruited by Juice. When I sat in on a rehearsal last week, Lincoln kicked off with a retro-funky R & B bass line and then the rest of the Machine jumped in, passing the lead between Getsug’s sax and Felix’s keyboard. They slipped into a heavy take on Dr. Dre’s “The Next Episode” that Getsug transformed — with a blaring “Rump Shaker” sax solo — into Jay-Z’s “Show Me What You Got.” Russoul traded lines with Juice, matching the MC’s freestyling with his own improvised melodies and lyrics — at one point he took my Reader business card and they both started riffing on it. I could feel everyone in the group pushing and pulling on everyone else, driving deeper into the groove. It didn’t take much warming up before they were playing with enough heat to scorch the green band you’ll see on the DVD.
Live-band improv isn’t exactly mainstream in hip-hop, so it might seem strange for Juice to pin his crossover hopes on this project — but he has an answer for that. He thinks audiences have been “duped” by BET and Viacom to accept a dumbed-down version of hip-hop, and he wants to enlarge the mainstream the way OutKast did. “They were on some ghetto, southernplayalisticadillac shit, and then they took it to a higher level, and they brought their ghetto fans with them,” he says. “That’s my goal. That’s why I want the Metro to be a mixed crowd — I want it to be a crowd that doesn’t like real hip-hop, people who don’t like real lyricism. So once we floor them, they’ll come back, and they’ll thirst for something greater.”
I don’t care to predict what the Metro crowd will go for, but watching Juice ride whatever his band threw at him, I understood that he’d solved one of his own biggest problems. What’s been missing from his music, at least outside the freestyle circuit, is the same thing that made his battle with Eminem such a classic — someone who can give him a challenge to step up to.
For more on music, see our blogs Crickets and Post No Bills.

1. How did you come up with the nickname T-Trash?
Battling. Known for tossing weak Emcee and haters to the curb like garbage. That’s way the call me Trash.
2. You have your own way of telling about Michigan to people. What inspires you most to write your songs?
Simple. My atmosphere in Michigan. We get a bad rep. Were on of the darkest states. Flint and Detroit are numbers 2 and 3 on the most dangerous cities.
3. What is the biggest challenge you had to face as an emcee?
Hate. They say Detroit is the player hater capital, and that s truth. To many rappers. There’s no dislike, only hate. Plus the media over here, radio, magazines, etc. show NO support to the local rap scene
4. Can you tell us a little bit about your upcoming CD?
My next Cd will be a mixtape Called “The Incursion Phase 2”. Witch will be out by April 07′. We gonna mix in a lot of famous name, such as, young jezzy, TI, Necro, Paul wall, Bone thugs, Chamillionaire. Also it will feature other local acts from Detroit. My next Album will be called “The Bad Guy” with should be out in sprig of 08′.
5. Which artists from the Detroit scene have you collaborated with already?
j-bone, autopzy, and ajax.
6. Which mainstream artist do you respect most and why?
Tech n9ne. ( that’s the closet to mainstream beside pac and biggie) His flow is can not be fucked w/. His delivery is the shit. His skill is on another level.
7. Which artist you haven t collaborated with would you envision a collaboration with?
Tech n9ne. Ha.
8. According to you, which elements give a unique flavor to your music on the Michigan scene?
That’s a loaded question. A lot does. I guess were one of the darkest (as in the sun doesn’t shine much) states in the U.S, witch brings out the darkness and the hardcore style & one of the highest suicide ratings. Plus the fact that Detroit (even the surrounding suburbs) are so gritty. I could go on all day, but I aint gonna bore no one.
9. Besides hip hop, what are your other musical influences?
MOTOWN. That’s a big one. The producers and writers are genius. If they where around today, they would own the rap and r&b scene.
10. Do you have any further musical projects for 2007?
Just The Incursion mixtape. I aim working on a project w/ one of my homies call “Skeam Team”. Be on the look out for that.
Copyright 2007 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

For those of you who are familiar with the Detroit scene, Young Miles is one of the most amazing freestylers I have seen.
All credit goes to Brian Stepp. Please don t steal the product of his work that has been posted with the author s exclusive permission for promotional purposes. Thank You.

Have a look at the following website, click on Jit Crew and watch the video!