The Modern Shakespeare

Readers, as you will know, I love me a good Shakespeare play, sonnet or merely a film adapted from the Bard’s greatest works.

Like Shakespeare, he was one in a generation (sure, there were others but nowhere near as widely lauded) and this notion got me thinking, who is the modern Shakespeare where their words light up the eyes and ears of today’s minds.

So who is this new person?

I’d like to consider that perhaps this is the iconic American rapper, Eminem.

His rapping is an exception to a large part of the genre, for it has meaning and set to music.

Within his songs there is a sense of relate-ability to the common man, something I suppose was not occurring to the readers of Shakespeare when he was alive.

And heck, not all of his songs (Eminem’s) are not Grammy award winning.

But nevertheless his music resonates to the people and while rapping can unintelligible, he breaks out from that shell and allows it to become something more than the subject of cliché riddled films.

So do you think that Eminem is the new Shakespeare?