So, here's what I did when it arrived. First, I skipped straight to the Eminem diss, which is actually track 3 on the 12". Then I went back, and played the other songs through. Then I put it away and forgot about it. But recently I came across it when putting some other records away and thought it might be amusing to revisit it and blog about it. You know, before I put it away for another couple years.
So the guy's name is Dasit, and apparently he was voted off The White Rapper Show in the first episode. Not a good sign. He's also "mentored" by Hammer (another bad sign), and he sounds exactly like Eminem. It's something he addresses (of course) in his first song, "Dasit:"
"'Cause people see my songs and say, 'you sound just like Slim;Your style, your voice, everything sound just like him.'
[At this point, the music turns into a quick reinterpretation of "The Real Slim Shady"]
Got you thinking we bought his first CD
Got as far as the first song and said, 'I'm the real Slim Shady.But all I hear is stereotypes"
...Now, I'd have more sympathy if he just happened to have a voice like Eminem's and yet everyone gave him a hard time about it. But as he even admits in his own bars, it's not just his voice... his flow, his delivery, his structures, the way he does his back-up ad-libs with silly voices, even the production is a complete rip-off of Eminem - he's worse than Asher Roth. He might claim to be "blessed with a curse of Eminem's vocal tone" (seriously, he wrote that in his CDBaby bio), but I don't buy it - this has to be an intentional impersonation.
He even signed to Big Willz Records, his manager's label. Never heard of 'em? Well, that's the personal label of Byron "Big-Naz" Williams, Eminem's former bodyguard who wrote a tell-all book about Em and recorded his own Eminem diss record with his crew, The Wadsquad, called "Shady Bizness." Yeah, that's his label and manager. So this shit's straight out of Eminem Hater City.
So okay, back to the record at hand. The first song, as I said, is called "Dasit." He explains his name ("it's like 'that's it,' but usin' slang") and freestyles on a bunch of random, autobiographical non-sequiturs, which are really just excuses to cram in a bunch of punchlines. It's produced, like the rest of this 12", by somebody named Frankie Biggz; and it all just sounds like low budget Slim Shady records. To be fair, though, there is an aspect of his raps that doesn't sound entirely like Eminem. The way he forces awkward jokes into his flow, and the maybe slightly higher pitch to his voice... he's not so much Eminem as - god help us - Eminem meets Hot Karl*. Check out these bars, for example:
"I told my mom,
God, he goes so far for these cheap laughs (if the first one is even meant to be funny... I'm not sure). He even changes voices for the roles of himself on the phone and his racist mother. Then he gets somebody else to jump on the record just to ask him what the name of his imaginary clothes line means. I'm sincerely embarrassed for him, listening to this.
I'd feel sorry for bagging on a clearly underdeveloped amateur here, but there's such an ugly side of crass marketing in the way he latches onto Eminem in a cynical attempt to cash in. And we didn't even get to "Hater (Eminem Diss)" yet. He lays it out oddly on the line, asking in his song, "am I really a fake rapper trying to be just like you, comin' from a fake city with a fake ass crew? Tell me it ain't so, Slim; tell me you didn't say this! Do I really join the list of Everlast and Limp Bizkit?" Apparently, though, Dasit has a specific grudge that spurred on this particular diss song:
"I just wanted to do a song on your soundtrack,
The hook even goes, "Eminem, why you don't like me? Why you so angry - you wanna fight me? Why, I ain't do nothin'. It's like you mad because another white guy is tryin' to steal your light or somethin'." He's literally whining.
I can imagine the reason Eminem never answered this record - I mean, besides the obvious - is because Dasit said what Eminem would've already said back anyway. "Yeah, you lied about your management and gave me a song for my soundtrack. I listened to and didn't like it, so I didn't use it." Is Dasit aware he's supposed to be making the other guy look bad in a diss track? The rest of the track consists of more general disses, and at least directed towards the right party, but it's all so juvenile. Like, check this out:
"Hold on, I gotta mention this.
Anyway, this is a single-sided 12", and comes in a generic white sleeve. For twenty-five cents, it's kinda fun to have a silly footnote in hip-hop history like this on your crates. Apparently, this guy has a bunch of other CDs and even 12" records... I'm not sure how low the price would have to get for me to check out those.
Update 2/27/12: It turns out, five years after this record (so, 2007), Dasit released a "Hater 2" via mp3 only. Instead of going after Em some more (though, amusingly, he bites another of his styles), he goes on about The White Rapper Show... he has some generic disses towards Serch ("mad at me 'cause I can't get no whiter" - what does that even mean?), and some of his fellow contestants who nobody remembers anymore. I had a hard time finding it, because this song's drifted pretty far off into obscurity... which is probably right where it belongs.
*He made a much better podcast host, though.
Lol... holy hell this guy is horrible and i never even heard 'em rhyme. Thanks for alerting me to never listen to this record.
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ReplyDeleteUmmm, Dasit has been rappin since 89...a lot longer then Eminem. I used to love eminem....then I did the background and now I found out the truth....I was out to prove he was just angry...turns out Eminem stole his style and a few raps....Uggg...eminem isn't even from the hood. Uggggg. Another Vanilla Ice!Oh well. Dasit came first and eminella.....is fake. :(
ReplyDeleteSorry to be disagreeable, but there is really no way Em bit his style from Dasit. If Dasit was rhyming back in 1989, we're talking amateur rhymes when he was a teenager. By that standard, Em was rapping since 1986.
DeleteBy the standard of early demo/self-releases only local fans may've heard, Dasit's first release with his crew (Glass House) was in 1998. Em's (Bassmint Productions) was 1990.
Dasit's first solo release was 2000. Eminem had already been a huge underground phenomenon with his Slim Shady EP in 1997. I remember those days well; Sandbox and HipHopSite kept selling out; he was doing the Wake Up Show Freestyles, etc. No offense to Dasit, but nobody outside of Dasit had every heard of him before The White Rapper Show in 2007.
And if you go back and listen to Dasit's early stuff (thank you, internet!), Dasit was barely using the Eminem style in the beginning (they sound more influenced by Bone Thugs or something). But on the songs for this single and his subsequent album in 2004, he's completely, shamelessly cloning Eminem in every aspect.
I can understand not wanting to give Em his props because he's become a big pop star who's made some really lame records in more recent years. But don't let that make you drink the Dasit Kool Aid. ;)