Turns out that Melbourne producer M-Phazes isn’t the only Australian musician that appears on Eminem’s much-hyped new album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2.
But where M-Phazes contributed production to the record’s opening track, ‘Bad Guy’, the second Aussie music-maker is contributing royalties from her own cameo to gay and lesbian charity following homophobic backlash over the new Eminem LP.
Sia Furler has lent herself out as a songwriting gun-for-hire since ‘retiring’ from touring last year, having lent her unique vocals and pop nous to international hit-makers like David Guetta, Katy ‘Biohazard’ Perry, and the Fat As Butter-dodging Flo Rida.
The singer-songwriter also appears on ‘Beautiful Pain’, a track she co-wrote with Eminem for The Marshall Mathers LP 2, and has revealed in a recent interview with The Huffington Post that she’ll be contributing all her proceeds from the sale of the record to charity. Specifically to the homeless LGBT youth at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Centre.
The move comes after Sia and her rap co-star came under fire for Eminem’s use of homophobic terms on his album earlier this week. Re-living the controversy that surrounded the first Marshall Mathers LP from 13 years ago, the Australian-bound MC defended his use of the word ‘faggot’ on the album, telling Rolling Stone that he had “no issue” with gay people. Sia “was under the impression that Eminem’s alter-ego Slim Shady was performance art, and a thing of the past…”
The Detroit rapper said his use of homophobic terms was not to do with sexuality; “it was more like calling someone a bitch or a punk or asshole,” Eminem explains. “Well, look, I’ve been doing this shit for, what, 14 years now? And I think people know my personal stance on things and the personas that I create in my music. And if someone doesn’t understand that by now, I don’t think there’s anything I can do to change their mind about it.
Sia tells Huffington Post that she “was under the impression that Eminem’s alter-ego Slim Shady was performance art, and a thing of the past, asserting that she does not believe that Eminem is actually homophobic.”
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To make amends, the Aussie musician will donate to the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Centre’s plans to fund a 50 bed shelter, a transitional living program, medical care, meals, clothing, and other initiatives.
Sia recently appeared in less controversial terms as the (sort of) cover star of Billboard, which documents her work for the likes of Beyoncé and Britney Spears, as well as the progress of her new album for RCA records due in “spring 2014”. The album, which the 37-year-old Adelaideian has been working steadily on with producer Greg Kurstin since April, has undergone a change of direction since Sia’s contributions to soundtracks for The Great Gatsby and the new film in The Hunger Games series.
“I don’t care about commercial success,” Sia tells Billboard. “I get to do what I love and communicate whatever I want.”
In related news, Eminem’s eighth and latest studio album is already one of the fastest-selling albums of the year, as NME reports, selling 73,000 copies in the three days since its release on 5th November.
By comparison, New Zealand pop sensation Lorde shifted 20,153 copies of her debut album Pure Heroine in Australia in its opening week, making it the second fastest selling album of the year Down Under. Meanwhile Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories – officially the fastest selling album of the year – earned the Parisian robots a staggering 49,175 copies sold in its first week, putting Eminem in good stead to take the crown with MMLP2.
Those figures are likely to boom when Eminem heads to Australia next February to headline the inaugural Rapture Festival, topping a bill that features Kendrick Lamar, J.Cole, and Australia’s own racism-battling MC, 360.
