Why a Florida mayor stopped Eminem from performing
A string of concerts were scheduled to take place in Daytona Beach, Florida in 2002, and arguably the biggest star in the world was set to play one of them. Eminem was looking forward to the gig, but somebody important wasn’t feeling too welcoming. The town’s mayor stepped in to block him from performing.
Eminem was on the verge of releasing his fourth album The Eminem Show, which would, we know now, become one of the best-selling albums of all time. It was a phenomenon, as was its maker. So surely any political figure of that period would love to get Eminem into their territory to use his fame to their advantage?
Of course, things didn’t always work like that when it came to Eminem. Despite being such a massive star with legions of fans, there were plenty of conservative sorts, and especially politicians, who had their issues with Eminem’s shtick. The mayor of Daytona Beach, Bud Asher, was one such person.
Asher had taken a strong dislike to Eminem a year earlier, after he had played a gig in Daytona Beach with D12. During a performance of ‘Purple Pills,’ it seems Asher was left aghast at the fact the song referenced drug use—so he ordered that the performance be halted.
Asher believed that the drug references were in violation of an agreement between Daytona Beach and the broadcaster BET, which had established that profanity and lewd behaviour would not be broadcast. Quite how D12 managed to get on the bill, given those conditions, is a question for another day.
In any case, Asher was appalled by Eminem and he maintained that he would never be welcome back in his town. So even though Em was apparently up for doing this gig in 2002, Asher wasn’t having it.
BET, under pressure from the mayor, couldn’t allow Eminem to come back. “He’s actually got a new album coming out later this month and he wanted to come back,” a spokesperson for the broadcaster said at the time, “but the mayor, well, [BET] had to respect his wishes.”
This episode is all the more absurd when considering who was actually on the bill for the event. While Eminem was banned, other rappers including Busta Rhymes, Ja Rule, Ludacris, and Master P were all set to play. One imagines that, between all of them, some profanities were uttered.
Eminem, ultimately, didn’t have much time to dwell on things. The Eminem Show went straight to number one in the American charts following its May release, and it became one of pop history’s biggest albums.