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Kenia Granados

Writing 39B

Professor Lorene Delany- Ullman

3 May 2018

Eminem is an American rapper who was born in 1972 in St. Joseph, Missouri. His

cultural background consists of that of a troubled kid who had difficulties in school, had little

money and who now holds a grudge against his mother because of her poor job in raising him.

Eminem has produced a lot of raps in his career but a specific time in our country led him to

compose “The Storm”, which medium consists of multi-modal because it is visual and audio.

With this composition he hoped he would get an important message across about a problem that

has been going on in our country. Eminem composed “The Storm” around the time that Donald

Trump was elected as president and with his presidency, a lot of racists ideas were proposed. The

purpose of “The Storm” was to inform the audience of the poor job Trump is doing as president

and also be the voice for the people that agree with him. Eminem disagrees with the proposals of

Trump and believes that “racism’s the only thing he’s fantastic for” (Eminem 1:29). He

performed his piece in the BET (Black Entertainment Television) awards, so the genre is public

discourse, and with his performance he was taking advantage of all the people present to

introduce the problems that have been going on since the presidency of Trump. Eminem, just

like a lot of other people, dislike Trump because of his racist ideals so he was trying to persuade

his primary audience, people present in the BET awards, why Trump shouldn’t be president. His

secondary audience would be those watching the video of “The Storm” after he posted it in

social media, and with that he is hoping to continue getting his message across about Trump in

hopes of reaching a vast majority of people.

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Eminem’s strong words in his composition shows how angry he is with the presidency

and he says that “we better give Obama props ‘cause what we got in office now’s a kamikaze

that’ll prob’ly cause a nuclear holocaust (Eminem 0:49). What he’s trying to say is that Obama

was a better president because now Donald Trump is creating a lot more problems instead of

trying to get rid of them like a president should. So, we can say that the message of Eminem with

this piece is to show all the negative aspects of Trump and show how instead of helping out the

country he is making it worse, demonstrating how Trump is not the best fit for the position. “The

Storm” reminds me Gloria Anzaldua’s “How To Tame A Wild Tongue” because she was trying

to get an important message across about how we shouldn’t be ashamed of our native tongue and

instead express it, just like Eminem was expressing how Donald Trump is not adequate for

president and how we shouldn’t be afraid to disagree with him and his ideals. Both were showing

us to express our thoughts and beliefs.

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Works Cited

“Eminem.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 25 Oct. 2017,

www.biography.com/people/eminem-9542093.

YouTube, YouTube, 11 Oct. 2017,

www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=50&v=TXGZJk0nQs4.