Seven hours sitting in the same plastic seat, but was it worth it? Oh yes. To say Marshall Mathers had eluded me for a number of years would be an understatement, something I began to take just a little bit personal. So for me to be a long way from home travelling Australia, and for him to announce a tour there, I knew the heavens were looking down on me, the time had finally come. There was no way in hell (or heaven) I was going to be missing this.
Eminem alone was worthy enough. But put 360, Action Bronson, J Cole and Kendrick Lamar before him and I knew this would be a day my eternal love for Hip Hop would grow just that little bit more, lineups like this do not come around very often. It was Eminem’s evening and everybody knew it, but that didn’t mean the aforementioned quadrant weren’t going to show us what brought them to that stage in the first place, and 360 was the first to kick it off.
Melbourne born and bred, it was a big moment for Matthew Colwell (aka 360). Australian Hip Hop is growing each day, but just like the thousands he was staring out at, he is, even more so than the rest of us, still in awe of the great Slim Shady; “I was 14 when I first saw Eminem, and now I’m sharing the same stage as him”. If dreams come true, that was 360’s right there.
He warmed up the crowd just nicely, and made way for the heavy set, heavy bearded and heavily stoned Action Bronson. As far as new world rappers go, there isn’t anyone like the Flushing, Queens MC in the game today. My girlfriend thinks I’m modeling my facial hair on this ginger genius, which might be partly true, but if only I could rap like him! ‘Birds on a wire’, ‘The Rockers’ and ‘The Symbol’ were three standouts from his short but impressionable appearance; all this being in between his numerous attempts at lighting up blunts and singing 80’s power ballads. Salute to Phil Collins. Bronson was entertaining as both rapper and performer and is one of my favourites out there at the moment, exciting times for him really do lie ahead.
Why did nobody tell me J.Cole had so much energy? I didn’t know if he was coming or going, darting from one end of the stage to the other. But this impressed me. He captured the moment of every song performed, engaged with the crowd and genuinely sounded very humbled to be a part of such an original and rousing line up. To compare from when I previously saw Cole some four to five years ago, he has grown into an established and respected artist and appears to know the direction he is heading.
Talking of direction, there is only one way Kendrick Lamar is heading, and that’s up. I don’t need to go into great depth about how, within the last two years, he has changed the game and spun it on its head. We all know what’s going on. There are rappers that have been around five times as long as Lamar and yet still haven’t got the ferocity, originality and sheer talent to break the mould like K.Dot has done in such a short space of time.
His performance was an overview of the greatly acclaimed debut Good Kid M.A.A.D City, and he appeared in absolute cruise control, moving from one song to the next with effortless ease, almost too easy in fact.
These days, the expectation of Kendrick Lamar couldn’t be any higher, and I somewhat found myself left wanting more. Maybe more of a personal performance for the crowd, or possibly a rewind to his old classics on Section 80, maybe an all round performance is not enough these days, who knows.
However, seeing him perform in January 2013 to now in February 2014 is remarkable in the scale and difference of just the arena alone; a few hundred people at the HMV Institute in Birmingham on a wet and cold snowy night to a fifty thousand plus capacity stadium on the other side of the world where everybody is chanting and hailing him as the ‘New King Of Hip Hop’. The boy done good. Let’s face it, he couldn’t of done any better could he?
The only thing is, that throne is still being occupied, by a 41 year old white boy who doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘quit’. Enter Eminem, and it was what we’d all been waiting for (me longer than most I assume). An absolute rampage of twenty six tracks than spanned across the course of his career and ninety minutes that confirmed to me Marshall Bruce Mathers III is one of the best rappers to have ever graced a stage with a microphone.
Starting off with ‘Survival’, very aptly named for an artist who has gone through more trials and tribulations than one episode of the Kardashians, Eminem meant business, and he’s here to remind everyone of how and why he’s made it so far: with the craziest, most unimaginable intelligence one man with a rapid fire tongue can possess. All those years he avoided me were instantly forgotten, and I fell in love with him all over again.
Eminem doesn’t do this for the money, nor for fame. I admire his undeterred hunger for rap and Hip Hop, that’s one addiction he doesn’t need saving from. To have given so much to the game and still be relevant and on top in 2014 says everything you need know about Slim Shady. In every Eminem interview, there is one line that’s always repeated, “All I do, and all I ever wanna do, is rap”. And that he does, I wouldn’t put it past him attempting to perform at Rapture 2024! Rap away Eminem, rap away.
Bump Magazine 
I wish I’d been there!
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