Rap God or vessel of inspiration? Plato versus Eminem
If Plato had heard Eminem rap the lyrics “I’m beginning to feel like a rap God”, he would have fully disapproved. This disapproval is not the contemporary concerns about Eminem voiced by the LBGTQIA+ community, or women for the violent misogyny and homophobic lyrics. Nor is the disdain associated with the rapper’s celebrated Detroit trailer park origins and the hubristic claim to be a god: uncomfortable for the notorious elitist, Plato.
The rapper’s line, delivered in the song Rap God (Mathers, 2013) articulates the debate about the creative process of the poet, whether the poet himself creates the words, or whether the lyricist is a passive vessel of divine inspiration. This idea was discussed by Plato in Ion (written around 380BCE), and it is one which arguably still lingers.
Plato, through the character of Socrates in Ion and other dialogues, exhibits a consistent disdain for the poet – the creator of lyrics, and the rhapsode - the reciter of poetry.
The influence of poets in the society of Classical Athens, particularly Homer, was far more profound than in contemporary times. Poetry provided both education and ethical teaching, but also public and private entertainment, through festivals and symposia. This influence, Plato believed, had to be dismantled before the new order could be established with philosophers as leaders; a notion expounded in The Republic (380BCE). In this society, poets were exiled, although if their importance was argued for, they could be included. Despite ambivalence in the occasional respect for Homer, Plato had to demonstrate the poet as unworthy of social status.
One way in which Plato argues for the poet’s incompetence is to suggest the creator of lyrics is in a passive state when inspired: the poet is “out of his senses and his mind is no longer with him” (Ion 534B). Thus, the lyricist, in a frenzied state comparable to madness, has no agency over his work, nor any claim to the labour involved; they are just a vessel of inspiration for the influence of the muse.
In the official video for Rap God there is a moment when Eminem seems to speak “in tongues” when his rapping accelerates (4:22). This implies the artist is possessed - much like Plato’s argument of the poet as divine vessel – in a state of ἐνθουσιασμός (enthusiasmos, a state of being inhabited by a god).
The Matrix-like mise-en-scene (1:36), forming one narrative of the video, also implies the rapper is a vessel. The artist sits in a hi-tech chair with various cables plugged into him implying he is a passive receptor. However, he is a receptor of knowledge, rather than a muse, as books, TV and computer games are rapidly scanned. Although perhaps hinting at the poet as passive receptor, overwhelmingly Rap God is about being an agent of your own poetry and the labour involved.
Written as a response to the criticism he received, Rap God necessarily explores Eminem’s creative process. He is not inspired by a muse; he is a god: “morphin’ into an immortal”. Within the lyrics, the vocabulary echoes this theme: “god” “omnipotent” and “immortal”, words that are highlighted visually (3:35) and with the reference to Monika Lewinsky as if this god has witnessed all of history. The visuals too support this concept, showing the rapper levitating in both narratives, one in a room rapping with others and walking on water (5:36). The rapper has become Plato’s demiurge, the only craftsman the philosopher truly respected. The demiurge or the divine creator is a maker of worlds who does not rely upon the flawed forms and subsequently does not imitate or produce mimesis (an imitative depiction of the world in art), which was Plato’s initial criticism of artists.
Eminem challenges Plato’s concept of the poet by being divine himself rather than a conduit for divine inspiration, he is active and powerful rather than an instrument played by something else. He consciously engages in the production of his lyrics: “While I’m masterfully constructing this masterpiece”.
In interviews, Eminem never completely pinpoints the actual creative process, suggesting the song developed from a phrase stuck in his head. At other times, he claims the song was freestyled in 90 seconds. The process itself remains a mystery, but it is acknowledged as labour within the song.
Coupled with the process is a desire to create a profound effect on the listener, to give the audience a “feeling like it’s levitating”. Significantly, Socrates describes the effect of the poet on the audience as like a “magnet” (Ion 533D) similarly highlighting the powerful force. For Plato, this force has the “power of corrupting” (Republic 10:605) as it appeals to the irrational side of the soul. This is echoed by the belief that Eminem is “corrupting our youth” through his lyrics (Rodman, 2009).
Plato would have found Eminem’s self-identification as a deity in Rap God controversial. The philosopher’s conviction that the poet was not an important member of society, as his contemporaries believed, was largely based on the passive creative process and the magnetic appeal to the darker side of the listener’s soul.
As poets were simply inspired, according to Plato, they had no control of themselves, or any claim to the intellectual labour in the production of lyrics.
In Rap God, the artist adopts the role of deity becoming his own source of inspiration and consciously taking ownership of the creative process. He effectively re-establishes the subjectivity of the poet and labour in crafting lyrics. This is even more poignant perhaps from a working-class rapper, rather than a middle-class poet. However, Plato’s fear of moral corruption, another dimension of his critique of poetry, rises again in the reception of Eminem.
Bibliography
Plato Ion – trans by Fowler and Lamb (1925) Loeb Library
Plato Republic – trans by Cornford (1981) Oxford University Press
Mathers and Zayas (2013) Rap God
Rodman, G. B. (2006) Race. .. and Other Four Letter Words: Eminem and the Cultural Politics of Authenticity. Popular Communication, 4(2), 95–121.