Do you know what it’s like to bury a best friend? The feeling you get in your stomach when you see their casket lowered into the ground? I have a feeling 99% of the people reading this don’t. I do, and I can tell you, think of the worst feeling ever then think of the feeling you would get as you watched helplessly as that feeling got raped. THAT gives you an honest idea of what it feels like. Yeah, it’s bad. But can you imagine if you looked back on your own life and saw that you predicted that exact death in a music video you made, and even cast your boy (who would go on to die a few years later) to play himself dying? Can you fathom how that moment would feel? I can’t.
But Eminem can, because it happened to him.
The First Death
What is fucked up about death is, she is always there, looming. Pointing a finger. She, why she? Sorry, but like I have said before, I tend to feminize things that fuck me. anyway, we have no idea where she is, when she is, or why she is. But we know she is. We have all buried someone we love (or will) and death is as much a part of life as life itself. But sometimes, death tends to linger closer to others. Eminem is one of the souls she stays very close to at all times.
The first tragedy the befell him was when his cousin (Uncle) Ronnie took his own life. This put Eminem’s anger into focus, and ended up being a big factor in defining who he was and who he chose to become. But we are not here to talk about Ronnie. I just wanted to let you know how deep this dude’s rabbit hole went and how long it existed. Ronnie took his life when Em was still a teenager. That bitch goddess of death has been hovering near Marshall for quite some time now. Bu…bu…but wait it gets worse. Only real rap fans will get that reference, and I am fine with that.
The Prediction
I now present to you, the video for Toy soldiers, made by Eminem about a decade or so after first busting on the scene:
Now here is where shit gets weird and extra tragic. You see the dude on the table in that video? The dude who dies and is buried? Yeah, that is Proof. Eminem’s closest homeboy, post Ronnie. By the way, video was shot in 2004, and Proof would go on to be shot and have this exact scenario you see here play out in 2006. Granted, the video implies Proof would get shot because of a beef Eminem had, and the actual shooting was much weirder and surreal (in essence, no one who witnesses shit like that ever rats, so though they know who did it, no one has a definitive story of what led up to it). Some may want to say “that is the life they chose and that’s what happens” but you need to understand, these cats play characters. This is not a life they chose. If anything, it is a life that chose them. End result is, Proof got shot after a heated pool game. Yes, fucked up, I know. Why do you think I am sharing this?
The Misconceptions
He is talking about your racially motivated misconceptions about the shooting.
And to people who also feel compelled to say the rapper may have been a ‘thug’ or something similarly stupid, Proof wasn’t looked at like that sorta dude. He was pulled some shit, but never pieces. But that is not why we are here. We are not here to speculate about the death. We are here because the insanity that is Eminem predicting what he was going to go through two years later. From pacing around the waiting room to standing there, watching him on the table and then burying him, the video came true. All of it. Imagine the chills dude got when he realized he cast his boy to play out his own demise? I never realized any of this until I sat down today to watch this video (which I hadn’t in years) and was met with a wall of goosebumps when I realized who was on the table and being lowered into the ground in the video. His actually dead best friend, played by his actually dead best friend. Holy shit much?
The Tragedy and Healing
So you think burying a best friend would be hard? Imagine having to do it twice. Now add a third time to that if you count your practice run in the video. Hard to fathom, yes. But I will say, Proof’s death led to the single greatest memorial song ever recorded, and one that fucking killed me the first time I heard it because (1) it uses the THOU SHALL NOT FALL sample from the Lost Boys (which is some other level shit) and (2), because it hit every single nerve and thought I feel about my own best friend being gone. Now please note, the following is an unofficial video, but I DARE YOU not to get chills when you see the images of the first video placed over the lyrics in this song:
I guess you just have to know that loss to know that loss, but I know it. Maybe not on this level, but on enough of a level that I got chills when I put all this together today. But this whole shit, prediction, song, all of it, is fucking insane. Much love and admiration out to Eminem for managing to keep his fucking head on through the insanity that is his life. I feel you, motherfucker. For real. That shit hits home. And RIP Proof. Death’s a bitch. I led in with that for a reason. And apparently this video proves she is not one to shy away from sad irony and/or eerie predictions.
You, go here and become a REMlin, but please don’t die on me. Then follow me here because I don’t know why but other people say it so I said it, too.
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