By now, it seems like most people know every word to Eminem’s anthem “Lose Yourself.” The Grammy award-winning song became the hip-hop generation’s answer to “Eye of the Tiger,” thanks to that same generation’s answer to “Rocky,” Em’s semi-autobiographical 8 Mile. Em worked hand-in-hand with director Curtis Hanson and writer Scott Silver to bring a colorful retelling of his early struggles in the rap game to the big screen. From parking lot ciphers, and long bus rides with headphones and a pen and pad, to the epic stage battles at The Shelter, the audience gets a glimpse at what Em went through to be accepted by the Detroit rap community and how he honed his ferocious microphone skills. In lue of a traditional score, the film is full of late ’90s hip-hop classics to accurately put the watcher in a time machine, back when rappers couldn’t count on the Internet and YouTube to gain respect, back when they had to fight for it.
While “Lose Yourself” is the big takeaway from the film’s soundtrack, that and “8 Mile Road,” also by Eminem, are the only original songs used in the actual movie. In a film about music, it’s somewhat odd, yet refreshing, that the director elected to bridge scenes with silence and street noise rather than music, which also makes each song used much more effective. Both of these are also delivered in a unique way, often with the instrumentals being played through Em’s character B. Rabbit’s headphones while he scribbles down rhymes on a spare piece of paper. It serves as a glimpse into what his early songwriting process might have been like on the mean streets of the ‘D.’
The two modern day martyrs, the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur, are both well represented, even back-to-back at one point when Rabbit’s crew, the 313, are cruising along in his beaten down Ford. “Juicy” and “Gotta Get Mine” are the soundtrack for a Saturday joy ride as the crew debates that time period’s East Coast vs. West Coast rap war. The songs are often placed with pinpoint accuracy, which is the case with Biggie’s “Who Shot Ya,” which comes on shortly after Rabbit’s first run in with the rival crew, the Free World, after being brutally beaten by them the night before, breathing just a tad bit more life into the scene.
Biggie is represented a couple more times with “Unbelievable” and a couple of his joints with Junior Mafia, “Get Money” and “Player’s Anthem” while Pac’s “Temptations” is played at The Shelter shortly after one of Rabbit’s battle victories.
Rap’s first family of the ’90s, the conglomerate known as the Wu-Tang Clan, also provides a heavy amount of assistance to the film, both as a collective and as individuals. Everyone’s favorite acronym, “C.R.E.A.M.,” makes an appearance at The Shelter because, of course, cash rules everything around it. Method Man donates two of his hits, “All I Need” featuring Mary J. Blige and a perfectly placed “Bring the Pain,” which plays during a 313-Free World brawl and turns up the aggression. The late Big Baby Jesus himself, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, accompanies the 313 crew on the car ride to the brawl with “Shimmy Shimmy Ya.”
A pivotal scene finds Rabbit exiting a club and writing by himself on the hood of his car while OutKast’s “Player’s Ball” plays through the speakers of the parking lot. It’s a perfect choice given that the song disguises itself as a club anthem when it is in reality a couple of Atlanta poets’ way of retelling their struggles to make it in the world. Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” even work themselves into this barrage of hip-hop, the later showcasing Em’s versatile ability to freestyle over pretty much anything.
Other than “Lose Yourself,” which powerfully makes its first appearance at the end of the film as Rabbit walks away from his last battle, victorious, 8 Mile’s most important song has to be the one whose beat Rabbit rhymed over to defeat the evil leader of the Free World, Papa Doc, the film’s answer to Apollo Creed—Mobb Deep’s Queens anthem “Shook Ones Part II.” The song is first introduced as the opening credits appear on the screen and fade into the first glimpses of Rabbit, rhyming to himself in front of The Shelter’s bathroom mirror, which turns out to be an effective use of foreshadowing when the familiar beat pops up with B and Papa Doc on stage for the battle. Rabbit even incorporates the lyrics into his freestyle, “he’s scared to death, he’s scared to look in his f***ing yearbook,” alluding to the discovery that Papa Doc was in reality nothing like his persona might portray—far from a thug.
In a story that revolves around music, the direction 8 Mile‘s soundtrack took was critical. It gave the original music its own lane and put the audience in the right place and mindset throughout the film allowing them to lose themselves in the life of Eminem.
