Ugly Kid Slug

While Slug admits he emulates many old-school pros like KRS-One, Grandmaster Flash and Run-DMC, there is another pale-faced, continually stressed MC he keeps getting compared to. You almost feel like an asshole for bringing it up, but it's easy to see why other folks would: They both look white (Slug is the offspring of a mixed marriage), both are single parents, and both continually bitch in densely packed rhymes about their pain-filled lives, their exes and their mothers. "I ain't even mad at it no more," Slug says about the constant size-up. "A couple of years ago, when I first started hearing people say that shit, I was like, 'Whatever, man.' But at this point, if you wanna compare me to Eminem, I'm cool with that. I would prefer to be compared to Rakim, but whatever. Eminem is tight, so I can't really fuckin' get mad at people who compare me to him."

And if anything, Slug is an Eminem with hope, which is to say, not Eminem at all. Unlike Slim Shady, who just wants you to feel his pain and doesn't give a fuck about yours, Slug wants you to feel his pain because it is, in essence, your pain. The alienation, awkwardness and lack of purpose Slug raps about isn't that far off from the alienation, awkwardness and lack of purpose most of his fans feel. Is it any wonder disillusioned suburban kids dig him more than the average hip-hop head? "I just think that I'm an artist," he explains, "and I think that I'm like that because, let's face it, my favorite rapper in the world is KRS-One, and even when KRS was full of shit, he sounded honest. And so, I think that's where a lot of that comes from in my music. I always wanna be honest -- I don't wanna lie."

A rapper who's honest with himself -- why, that's almost unheard of.