ANALYSIS Eminem - Like Toy Soldiers
It doesn’t seem to be the most known and popular song from the Detroit rapper but it turned to be something special for us and appeared to be a big part of Eminem’s history. The audio was released in 2004 on the album ENCORE and the video was released in 2006. Here's the official video clip:
By the lyrics, the rapper searched to calm down the tensions of the rap environnement in which himself also participated during a beef (dispute) with New York rapper Ja Rule. The most famous case in Hip Hop history is by far the East Coast - West Coast War which began between Tupac (Los Angeles) and Notorious Big (New York) and ended with their own deaths respectively on September 1996 and March 1997. We’ll surely talk about them in later posts. Not everybody could send such a message but Eminem had the place made for it, indeed the rapper success began by battling other rappers during underground gatherings in Detroit.
Rappers were lyrically attacking their opponents over instrumentals, and the one most making the crowd mad happened to be the winner, gaining the respect of the public and a good reputation in town. Besides, Eminem romanticized this part of his life playing the role of Bunny Rabbit in his movie 8 Mile.
All along the clip Eminem plays as a fictive himself losing a friend due to a drive-by shooting caused by rappers beefs. This friend was played by his real best friend and associate, Proof. This seems to only be a detail but you’ll understand later. To analyse it musically, the instrumental uses some military sounding snare drums to feel the war, the hook sung by children also uses military rhythms. Actually the video clip began as two boys opening a book - looking like a History book of a war - instead of playing with toy soldiers. In the end of the video, these children appear in the choral of the funeral ceremony. Then, some Hip Hop heads show up painted on the wall: Big L, Biggie, Tupac and Bugz, all dead because of rap disputes.
But the most interesting and saddest fact didn’t come yet. We told you Proof was playing a character dead because of shootings, listen:
6 months after the shooting of the clip, Proof is taken in an altercation with a man in a club and shoot him in the head. The club bouncer, appearing to be the cousin of the other man, in turn shoot Proof. The Eminem’s best friend died. This is the turning event of Eminem’s career. Since then, the rapper began struggling with hard depression, thinking about stopping everything, pushing him to make a break in his career during the ''3 longest years of his life’’ to finally come back in 2009 with his sixth album Relapse, marking the end of his blond alter-ego Slim Shady. To let you understand what Proof was to Eminem and especially feel the energy they were giving together, we propose you their iconic MTV freestyle, delivered roughly but finely in their car. PEACE.
-H - Rapology