Lloyd Ridehalgh, the basics.

My story.. well not much to it, just some dude tryna pursue his dreams i guess. Ever since i was young i was into rap, biggie, tupac, loved all that shit but my obsession with rap and my interest towards that genre of music turned serious when i heard my Pa playin Eminem’s Infinite album. I were only young, must of been around 7 maybe 8 and it was on and i was sat there, just listening to it. Never done that cause as a kid you more into your TV and playin on the front street with your mates, but i were sat on the sofa whilst my dad played on his Playstation just listening to this dude talking fast in a melodic way. My dad told me abit about Slim Shady, showed me a picture of him from a games magazine he was featured in and i thought “wow this dude is seriously cool”. So then i began to listen to this record more and more, when id get home from school, whenever i was doin homework, after id ate my tea, i began to pick out lyrics and recite them. I had no idea half the shit he was sayin but i knew i liked the vibe, the mellow beats, the feeling you got listening to this guy talk.
Ever since then i grew abit obsessed, id found a role model and secretly i loved this dude more than my own father. Every time id go to ICT in primary school id try look up anything on him, and i learn about him and how he came about, i was wrapped into his life, completely fascinated with him, i wanted to be him. As soon as Em released an album i bought it. In school i got most of my mates listening to him, they loved his style. The reason i took to Em’s story was because my home life was god damn hard. My mum and dad argued a lot, fights with a lot of blood, police were involved, they did drugs every other weekend, i looked after my little sister a lot too, and his music created an escape route for me, id go into my room plug my earphones into my cd player and block out the shouting and fighting. As soon as i started high school and i got into the social circle of new friends that's when people would point out that i had a few of Eminem's features. A girl used to tell my how i had Shadys nose and his eyes, but i got embarrassed about it, and i didn’t like it much.
 I then got to the 4^th year in high school and there were an end of year talent contest and my cousin Drew who was in the same year as me told me i should do an Eminem song. I laughed about it at first but i knew all of Shadys material that was out so far. After school i asked my Ma about it and she told me i could get an outfit for it and supported me on my idea. So she took me shopping that weekend and i bought my first Eminem styled outfit, black loose fit joggers, a pair of plain white Nike trainers, an oversized white T-shirt, a white baseball cap and a baggy black zip up Nike hoody. She even took me to a shop that sold fake jewellery so i bought a silver chain that came down my chest and a silver ring. I met back up with my cousin Drew when i got back home that night, he told me id missed out the du-rag. He had a black one that he leant me and that was me kitted out!
Dinner time and break at school was for rehearsing and all the acts were in there, i was in the far corner with the schools ghetto blaster i had borrowed from my music teacher and i put on Encore, and began reciting to Mocking bird. The reason for my song choice was basically because that was the most commercialized Eminem song so far, so i wanted people to be able to sing along.
Anyway i got on with my shit and my school mates started poppin into the main hall to watch me rehearse, they all loved what they saw. I was only miming but i felt like Em’s voice were channelling from my vocal chords. The night finally came and word got about what i was doin and apparently everyone couldn't wait for my performance.
The drama teacher who were head of the talent contest put my act as the closing act which i fumed about because i had to sit through the whole show which meant watchin girls that i hated sing like shit and performances from the drama club that made me wanna gag. I just wanted to do my shit and go home. Anyway after almost an hour it were my time to go up on stage, i got dressed up and the girl who i were with at the time told me i was gonna do great and that i looked like a miniature twin which made me laugh some nerves off. My name got introduced and i climbed up the couple of steps as soon as the first piano notes played. Soon as i said the opening word “Yeah...” i looked up into the huge spotlight coming from the top balcony in our huge school hall and i looked down into the crowd of parents and family of everyone in this contest. As i mimed in sync to the spoken intro everyone began clapping, and then i felt my shoulders loosen up. The music sounded amazing in the open hall and the mic i had was a real one but it wasn’t turned on so whilst i was really rapping , people only heard Em. People were tapping their feet and clapping to the beat of the song. I were walking around the stage, using Shadys hand movements, walk and persona that id studied on videos and film. Obviously people knew i were miming so on the second chorus i pulled it away from my mouth and pointed it to the crowd and the majority of the crowd joined in, it gave me one of the hugest fuckin rushes id experienced.
 After i’d finished they all went berserk and i got a standing ovation for it. I won the contest and from that moment on i knew what i wanted to do, i wanted to be on stage. When i got to 16 i started to dress like Eminem all the time, i even bought his official merchandise and anything i could get my hands on. When i went out at weekends i got a lot of looks and attention even at such a young age. I even began talkin like him because id listen to him so much. The attention id get caused a major rift between me and my then girlfriend id been with since i was 14.
At age 17 my facial features grew stronger, especially my jaw line and i could see in myself that i were beginning to look alot like Eminem himself, my own mother said the resemblance was crazy. I then joined social networking sites and started taking pictures and everyone would leave comments telling me how much i resembled Marshall and it made me feel brilliant. As soon as i began my engineering apprenticeship at collage the guys there even told me i looked the spit of my idol, but it started to get abit boring, everyday hearsay. After a while everywhere i went i got people coming up to me commenting on my looks, i just thanked them, didn’t really know how to deal with it. Then my girlfriend got jealous because a lot of females started to chat me up, whistle, she’d get wound up, accuse me of wanting to sleep with them, it put a lot of pressure on me because i loved her at the time but she split with me. I got really fucked off and stayed in for a while, only going out to go to collage. I sat down and put on one of Em’s albums, and then i turned it off, and decided i needed to vent, so i got out one of my collage pads and took a pen and started writing, words added up and it felt good to burn the ink. Obviously it was nothin genius but i looked at it an i were pretty damn proud. Again i turned to my cousin Drew who’s also one of my closest an he said there were some pretty good material, told me to save up to buy something to record on, he had a set of decs and some vinyl’s and before we knew it we were in his room, i had the mic and we began laying down stuff. I never promoted myself for it but we made CD copies and people took them for free.
In my own rights in my neighbourhood i became abit of a low key celeb, people were all around me at house parties and where ever i went people would always say hi and then i heard back from my high school ex and hooked back up with her. As soon as i hit 18 i began going out partyin, gettin myself into states, people buyin my drinks for me, handin me a few pills here and there i loved it, my parents had calmed down ever since my second sister came along six years back, but id gone off course. However i did calm down when my nana passed away, it was fucking crazy how fast that year had gone. When i passed and finished my apprenticeship they took me on permanently and so i got back into work and got on with what i had to do. I passed my driving test, bought my first car and planned to move out with my girlfriend but my uncle who set up stages for festivals had come to me and told me i should save up for stage gear. It became a lot clearer when he told me he could get me a tribute show gig at a venue which took on tribute shows and big social events. This was up north, we lived in Fulham, south of London and he wanted me to perform in a small town in Lancashire.
After a month all had been finalized and i got the show all i needed was to put it together, my uncle acted like a manager, he were one of those guys who knew everyone, contact book as long as fuck so he got a cheap photographer to take some shots of me to make a poster that was to advertise the show. He then said i should find a “crowd warmer” so i got Drew on board and two of my best mates who were Deshaun or ‘Big D’, he was your average big, black ghetto African, English dude who loved nothin but weed and there was Chris who we called ‘Tic-tac’ because when we were younger we dared him to shove a tic-tac up his nose and he got it stuck and had to go hospital.
Anyway we got putting ideas together and we got putting the show together bit by bit. We had two month of solid rehearsals and then before we knew it the night came. We preformed to 600 people that night, and it were the best night in my whole damn life. We opened the show to Business but a version we created and mixed without the lyrics, just the beat and the sirens going off in a loop, Drew introduced the concert by sayin “Ladies and gentleman... Its show time!” Then Big D came out shouting “Hurry, hurry step right up, introducing the star of our show...” just as Big D and Drew were shouting out, Tic-Tac joined them and they all in sync shouted “His name is...” And where the backing vocals of “Marshall...” were about to kick in the record scratched and the music cut out, of course all being the act. The three of them would blame each other and then the stage lights go, for a split second everyone’s sat in darkness and then the stage lights power up and then the original track to Business kicks in and i come out rapping “Bitches and gentleman its show time...” Everyone went wild, i looked out and girls were going mental, i didn’t think much, didn’t want to fuck anything up so as Drew took on the role of Dre and Bic C and Tic stood either side of the stage egging on the crowd i began getting into the role of my idol. We based our hour an twenty minute long gig on the anger management tour so everything Em did on there i mimicked, except bumpin and grindin with a female on Superman.
 The show was huge and when i finished people went mental, i couldn't understand because i wasn’t really Eminem, they knew that so why were they so hyped? But man i fuckin loved the attention. We did a photo opportunity thing, and all the females sat on my lap, kissed my cheeks, hugged me, never known anything like it. After that show came more, but not as big as that, more in clubs, private gigs, and conventions. Loved doin it but the more i did it the more my bird got jealous and ended up questionin my shit, gettin on my nuts, goin mental at every girl who claimed to have been with me which weren’t true. We argued all the god damn time and fought a couple of times. She then cheated on me so we broke up for good and i hated her guts, still do but i had more important shit to deal with. I dont waste time on girls, i focus on representing my idol, doin what i love to do. It still amazes me how much attention i get, i’ll walk around stores and people will follow me around, even when im on the street or driving in my car people stare, but i make it more fun, play up to it, fool them, i’ll go dress up as Shady to places and take a big group of friends with me and we’ll walk around and attract a lot of attention, but even when they find out it aint Eminem they still want pictures.


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