Re:Group Uses Latest Album To Step Out Of Eminem's Shadow
Friday, July 30, 2004
Hot Ticket: D12
Group uses latest album to step out of Eminem's shadow
By Alan Sculley / Special to The Detroit News
D12 started out as a group that included Eminem. The rapper and the group still work together, but n0w the group wants to stand on its on skills.
D12
6:30 p.m. Sunday
State Theatre
2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit
Tickets $35-$45
Call (313) 961-5450 or www.ticketmaster.com
Although D12 existed well before bandmember Eminem exploded onto the scene as a dynamic and controversial figure in rap, Kon Artis knows that being part of D12 means the other band members can’t be too bent on being noticed.
As long as Marshall Mathers remains, D12 will be known as Eminem’s group.
But the band’s second CD, “D12 World,” brings the other five group members from beneath Eminem’s omnipresent shadow.
“There was a need to spread out because we were, we’ve been so tainted with the Eminem shadow,” Kon Artis says. “It’s hard to be looked at as talented artists when you’ve got one guy who’s so talented, who’s gotten so much attention.”
“D12 World,” which debuted at No. 1 and dropped to No. 15 on “Billboard” magazine’s album chart, is a considerably stronger, more cohesive effort than D12’s 2001 debut, “Devil’s Night.” The tracks more consistently deliver potent beats, entertaining and often bawdy lyrics and simple, but effective, synthesizer-and-bass-laden musical backdrops.
The Detroit-based group formed in 1995 after the six members met at Detroit’s Hip-Hop Shop, where they were regular performers. Proof (Deshaun Holton), who was already close friends with Eminem, was a star performer and the host of the Shop’s Saturday afternoon open mike battles. Kon Artis (Denaun Porter) and Kuniva (Von Carlisle) were part of the Brigade. Potty-mouthed member Bizarre (Rufus Johnson) was a solo artist and Swift (Ondre Moore) was part of the band, the Rabies. When the rappers joined forces, Proof offered the name D12 as a takeoff on “Dirty Dozen.”
Eminem, though, broke out of the D12 collective, signing with Interscope Records and blasting onto the scene in 1999 with the quadruple platinum “Slim Shady LP,” followed in 2001 by the equally popular “The Marshall Mathers LP.”
When “Devil’s Night” was released later in 2001, D12 became widely perceived as the Eminem show — group version. But Kon Artis acknowledges that Eminem led the way creatively on “Devil’s Night,” before making room for other group members to have a bigger impact on songwriting for “D12 World.”
“I think when we first came in, it was more or less like learning how to create a song and create a situation that people want to listen to,” says Kon Artis. “Now it’s like a lot of these songs that are on the (new) album are created by different members.
“Everybody steps up to the plate and steps out of their own shells.”