Kim Osorio Gives Insight Into The Source/Eminem Beef, How It Effected Business
Published: Tuesday - September 9, 2008
Words by Miles Bennett
Kim Osorio (Photo: kimosorio.com)
With a tell-all book of her time behind-the-scenes at The Source hitting newsstand this week, Kim Osorio has leaked some excerpts from the pages, detailing the problems between the mag and Eminem.
According to the former Editor-In-Chief, the beef between Benzino and Eminem was funny, but as it grew, it made her job as editor harder and Zino's use of the mag as leverage also grew.
"Eminem actually released two diss records in response to Benzino's attack on him, and as corny as it was for the two of them to be battling, at least Eminem could rap," she writes in the book. "We joked and laughed about it, but inside I knew it was going to make my job a lot harder. The more Eminem kept playing into this beef, the more Ray would use the magazine against him."
The beef was the beginning of the end of the once powerful magazine. Business practices became centered around the beef with Eminem/Interscope, says Osorio, so much so that it consumed Benzino.
Dave Mays, the original founder, didn't stay out of the feud either. He stood my Zino's side, and as Osorio puts it, used his agenda and "repackaged it into a hip-hop emergency that the magazine needed to cover." These types of behaviors ultimately strained the mag's relationships around the industry.
"Ray never ever left the beef alone. The rest of my career at the Source was dedicated to the destruction of Eminem, Interscope, Shady/Aftermath, 50, whatever and whoever were affiliated," Osorio writes in her book. "If Russell Simmons made a comment in support of Em, the mandate was to bash Russell Simmons. If someone had a problem or beef with 50 or Eminem, they automatically got to be on the cover.
"Everything was somehow connected to Marshall Mathers thereafter. But Dave (Mays) knew how to disguise it. After years of dealing with Ray, Dave had acquired a special talent. The art was to take Ray's self serving agenda and repackage it into a hip-hop emergency that the magazine needed to cover. This time, Dave defined it as destroying the 'machine.' The machine that had taken hip-hop and turned it into a multi-billion dollar business, forgetting where it came from. The machine that capitalized off 50 Cent's thuggery and was poisoning our culture. The machine is what was keeping Eminem going. Machine, bad. Eminem, bad. 50, bad. Ja Rule, good. Benzino, good. Russell Simmons, uh, what did he say? He likes Eminem? Bad," she continued.
Kim also talks about the struggles of being a woman of power in the industry, and how different women are treated over men. She says your resume isn't the only thing she had to worry about.
"A woman doesn't only have her resume to worry about, she's also got her reputation, and when it comes to a woman's reputation in the business of hip-hop, it's almost customary to define her by the men she's been linked to," an excerpt reads on pages 14-1. "Pick up any hip-hop magazine and compare the stories done on women to those done on men. I guarantee you'll find out more about he woman's past sex life than you will about the man's. That code doesn't just apply to celebrities, it's the same behind the scenes as well. For me, it was no different. The more successful I became in the industry, the harder it became to keep people out of my personal business."
Kim Osorio's Straight from the Source: An Expose from the Former Editor in Chief of the Hip-Hop Bible hit stores today. You may purchase it also at Amazon.com.
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