Newsmakers

Sounds Shady, Slim: Did the real Slim Shady just stand up? Last week David Mays and Raymond (Benzino) Scott of The Source magazine, once considered the bible of hip-hop, held a press conference to play what they claimed were a pair of unreleased Eminem recordings from 1993, on one of which he verbally attacks a black ex-girlfriend. "All the girls that I like to bone/Have the big butts, no they don't/ 'Cause I don't like that n----r s--t/I'm just here to make a bigger hit." And: "I'll get straight to the point, black girls are bitches/that's why I'ma tell ya you better pull up your britches."

Until last week, this conspicuously white rapper in a conspicuously black medium was known for his scrupulousness about race--the third rail of hip-hop. And the imprimatur of legendary producer Dr. Dre had given him credibility in the black community. Eminem's manager told MTV that neither he nor Eminem had heard of the track containing the N word. But Eminem acknowledged the other track was his. "I'd just broken up with my girlfriend, who was African-American," he said in a statement, "and I reacted like the angry, stupid kid I was. I hope people will take it for the foolishness that it was, not for what somebody is trying to make it into today." Eminem refused NEWSWEEK's request for an interview. But Mays, who along with part-time rapper Benzino has been involved for more than a year in a war of words with Eminem, was glad to elaborate. "This is racism," Mays (who is white) told NEWSWEEK. "Eminem is a divisive figure, not unlike Elvis, leading hip-hop away from the community that created it, toward a new form marketed to mainstream--i.e., white--America." He vows to release the tracks with The Source's January issue.

-N'Gai Croal

Q&A: Alex Rodriguez

Any doubt about who is baseball's most valuable player should have been erased three years ago when the Texas Rangers signed A-Rod to a record 10-year, $252 million contract. Last week the 28-year-old shortstop finally won his first American League MVP trophy. Rodriguez batted it around with NEWSWEEK's Mark Starr.

How strange is it to win the MVP and then hear your name in trade rumors?