The “Red Bull EmSee: The Road to 8 Mile National Championship” took place last week to find out who takes the crown as the best freestyle rapper in the country.   The event brought rappers from all best rap battling hot spots in the country including New York City and the Bay Area but the finals took place in Eminem’s hometown at Saint Andrew’s Hall in downtown Detroit. Here is a clip posted by redbull where Eminem talks about his freestyle career, his freestyle formula, and what he expected from this year’s Redbull EmSee competition.

Well were Em’s expectation met? YES and then some! The final battle came down to 18 year old Detroit native, Michigan State University freshman, Saffal Tall, better know as FowL, and New York City rapper, DNA.  The lyrical face offs were judged by Mr. Porter, Alchemist, and of course Eminem.  Let’s rewind a little and explain how this competition worked.

In the first round, the competitors were paired off and were asked to check out five images on the projection screen and then produce a freestyle about those images.  The highlight of round 1 which got the biggest reaction was when Austin rapper, Franchyze, was shown an image of Bob Saget and unleashed, “We had an orgy in your home/it was a full house.”  Wowzers!!

In round 2, each rapper was given a random word and was asked to use it in a freestyle.  Very similar to an old school Eminem word freestyle I remember which you can give a listen to here.  The competitors had a bit more difficult with this round due to the short 60 seconds they had to showoff their skills.

The last round was straight freestyle, no images, no words just straight off the dome flow with the show’s host D.R.E.S tha BEATnik beatboxing.  The biggest reaction was in the direction of FowL after he rhymed, “Who would you rather listen to?/someone who spits the truth/or a n**** with a missing tooth?”. DNA then attempted to start it off 8 mile style with “everybody from the 313, put your hands in the air and follow me” which resulted in unanimous boos from the crowd and consequently cut his rap short.  Not a great idea to start it off like that if you happen to be from New York City.  FowL was then crowned the winner by unanimous decision.

I wasn’t successful finding any footage from the actual final battle but since I already know you’re going to Google or YouTube FowL I thought I would save you the trouble. Here is the champion’s freestyle in his dorm room.

I’m sure you have all seen Eminem & Rihanna’s new music video for “Love the Way You Lie”, if not, click on the play button a couple inches under this post and checkout the powerful and debatable video.  Rihanna’s past experience with boyfriend Chris Brown made her the ideal candidate for the track and it seems that the two superstars really connected on a different level since they both have a significant amount of insight into abusive relationships.  Em’s Granny, says that they have been texting and talking to each other constantly.  I wonder what Rihanna’s boyfriend, baseball star, Matt Kemp thinks of all this texting?

Eminem’s grandmother, Betty Kresin, said, ”I can totally see what any girl including Rihanna would see in him.  He’s so charming; he has always had adorable, beautiful blue eyes and this charming, wonderful smile.”  ”Rihanna would make a suitable partner for Marshall. But he needs to enjoy life and not get carried away with any relationships at the moment,” she added.

For those of you that are curious Betty Kresin is Eminem’s grandmother on his mom’s side and his late Uncle Ronnie’s mother.  She has six children with three different men, Eminem’s mom being the oldest of the children.  Marshall and Betty had a good relationship until Marshall wanted to use Ronnie’s voice and demo tape but Betty thought it was disrespectful.  The two have reconciled since as you can see.

A separate source told Heat Magazine that Marshall Mathers “would date Rihanna in a heartbeat.” Really??  Who the hell wouldn’t date Rihanna?!  I had the chance to catch Rihanna in concert in Singapore with my friend who worked for MTV.  I always thought she was pretty but I always figure that’s a lot of it is the makeup or the airbrush but seeing her close up I realized she is seriously gorgeous!

Eminem and Rihanna’s smash hit single will premiere tonight Thursday, August 5th on MTV at 9pm EST.

The infamous infomercial master, Vince Offer, does a commercial for the “Recovery” album mocking his own SlapChop infomercial. I actually bought the SlapChop, not half bad for hard vegetables.  Yes he is also the dude who was arrested for assaulting a prostitute in Miami because she bit his tongue and “wouldn’t let go”.