This Is Lelz Kidding Dont Read It

Eminem: Tanya
Tupac:  Anna
Vanilla Ice: Smriti

Smriti: Yo maan! Did you see that article on yourself that “Vibe” just released?
Tanya: What? No I didn’t see it yet man! Show it to me!
Smriti: Here take a look. They’re saying how you’ve now “recovered” from your drug addiction and they’re talking about your new album that was just released!
Anna: Ohhh I saw this article this morning! Man it’s crazy how the media is always so fast on releasing news! Like you’re album literally came out yesterday only!
[ Tanya reading the article ]
Tanya: “After months of drug addiction to Valium, Vacodin and Methadone, Eminem has finally recovered from his drug addiction. We can all thank his mentor Elton John that immensely helped him during his rehab” [Closes article]
*sighs* The media is always sooo nosey
Anna: Man I know right! Not only are they nosey as hell but they dramatize EVERYTHING and make you look like the bad guy. Like did you see this article about me the other day? They were complaining about how my lyrics are too violent and that I would influence people negatively!
Smriti: Why would they say that you would influence people negatively?
Anna: They were saying how I will influence the young black generation to follow the Thug life. But my aim is just to give them some hope … All I’m trying to do is survive and make good out of the dirty, nasty and unbelievable lifestyle that I live in.
Tanya: Yeah, I understand what you mean… You just want to reach out to your fans, and everyone has their own way of doing that, yours just by making the “thug life” seem more glamorous to people. The media just doesn’t understand our way of expressing ourselves through our lyrics… they just see a bunch of swear words and hatred.
Smriti:  Yeah well, that’s the problem with the media. They see our music through a perspective that we didn’t project… but my main thing is Music. It’s what I do and that’s it. For me, I use my music to vent, and a lot of stuff that I am writing about or was writing about contained a lot of anger and anxiety, stress and depression.. I kinda used it like a therapy.
Tanya: That’s true Vanilla, I use my music as therapy too.  Dude but you know that period where I had an addiction to drugs and I released my album “relapse”? Well this Album is seriously full of shit since I was high most of the time…. I don’t remember most of it but what I DO remember is how the media used to portray me as this violent and unstable rapper that will always be a drug addict.
Anna: Yeaah you mean they labeled you with all those stereotypes on rappers right? About how rappers are gangsters and drug addicts and violent and all…. Well in my time rappers were like this actually… For instance myself, I was looked at because of my weed smoking, my cursing, my tattoos and my “gangster” violence. I see that even now, the image that the society projects on rappers still haven’t changed!
Tanya: well it is true that once I was like this… But the media doesn’t understand that I grew up in Detroit and hence didn’t have the best examples to look up to while growing up. I never knew my father and therefore he couldn’t teach me how to grow up to be a good man and my mum and I didn’t see eye to eye at all… we always fought frequently! So obviously when we’re gonna write songs about life it’s going to contain hatred and swear words and references to violence. It’s our way of expressing our anger to the world.
Smriti: Yeah same, with the mega-fame came the mega-downfall – you know, with the press and everything – and at a young age, it was very stressful to me. That’s why I was easily tempted by the heroin, ecstasy and cocaine… the press and how they saw me got to me and that’s why I attempted suicide in 1994.
Anna:  I guess we all went through a rough time in our lives once…  I remember that the press viewed me as just another disgruntled young black male filled with prejudice and advocating violence. That’s why the media tried to silence me as much as possible so as to stop my “violent” lyrics and lifestyle from “corrupting” our world.
Tanya: Dude, the media’s so fucked up. They constantly labeled me as a homophobic, sexist and hateful person. Basically the media points a finger at ME and says I’m the source of society ills and that I’m influencing the young ones and that’s the reason why they’re so fucked up these days. But dude like what the fuck? I don’t mean nobody harm, I’m just partyin’. Im not your dad, not your mum, not your guardian. Im just a man who’s on the mic, and all I’m trying to do is entertain you.
Smriti: why do they label you as a homophobic and a sexist?
Tanya: Cuz I would use “faggot” and make references to gay-looking boys in my songs. But what they don’t understand is that from where I came from, people threw around the word “faggot” like they were saying “goodmorning”.  So obviously I formed a habit of using the word faggot too but I never meant for it to offend gay people. Like dude I have nothing against gays, even my friend Elton John is gay man. And yeah, I don’t hate women; they just make me mad sometimes.
Smriti: Oh, I know what it feels like when the media labels you as something you are not. Like you know that time in ummm… January 2001, my wife Laura and I were fighting and my anger got the best of me and I pulled her hair to prevent her from jumping out of the truck’s window? Well the media kept saying how I “assaulted” her and it made the whole situation look worse than it actually was!
Anna: well didn’t you plead guilty for the charges against you and was sentenced to probation? Urgh, how I HATE the law. I had to spend 18 months on parole in prosion on a sexual assault charge when I didn’t do anything. But I guess the law just wanted an excuse to send me to prison because the government and the media was scared that I would start an African American revolution or some shit like that.
Tanya: pfft… it’s probably because of your references to sex and drugs etc in your lyrics that they thought you were like that in real life too. Like dude, just because Slim Shady does things in a song doesn’t mean they actually happen in real life! When will the media understand this? I hated how they compared me to Genghis Khan once, a man responsible for at least 40 million of deaths, JUST because my lyrics were controversial and violent.
Smriti: Maan… I never thought rapping would be so complicated. Like I rapped about what I know. Girls and stuff. That’s what is going through my head and that’s the end of it. Why couldn’t it be that simple? But now I’m glad that my time of fame has decreased and people see me differently now.
Tanya: yeah dude me too, after my album “recovery”, the media started to portray me differently. Like they would say how  this album gave them “hope” for my future which was looking bleak before this release…
Anna: yeah well at least you got the chance to change the media’s perspective on yourself. I didn’t get that opportunity… The media ALWAYS targeted me and did everything in their power to silence me and portray me as a violent drug addict.
Smriti: shame Tupac… I’m sorry for you. But unlike you, I didn’t stay in the music industry my whole life and hence when I stopped rapping and performing, the media just left me alone and then I got the chance to build a life of my own… find love, get married, have kids and build a family. It did take me a while and a lot of hard times to figure out my purpose, but I am so happy with my life now.
Tanya: yeah, same. After my downhill I was able to get up again and build a good reputation. Now I am not seen as this wild, monomaniac man anymore!
Anna: I’m happy for you guys!
Tanya and Smriti: Thanks man