Who would take a kid to an Eminem concert?

I’m no prude, but when kids as young as nine are watching Eminem drop f-bombs and rap about dead bodies, it’s time to think about the long-term consequences, writes Cameron Adams.

At the risk of sounding like an incessantly outraged boomer, should music concerts come with content warnings like films and TV shows do?

Over the past week, a whole load of teenagers and pre-teens attended Eminem’s Australian concerts and copped 90 minutes of language at the higher end of colourful, which, between songs, included Eminem’s crowd banter, where literally every second sentence had an F or MF bomb detonated.

Of course, kids hear swear words these days. And you don’t attend a hip hop show without expecting explicit language. But it’s Eminem’s lyrical content that makes you wonder if it’s really appropriate listening for 10-year-olds who were probably listening to The Wiggles not that long ago.

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If you’re taking your kids to an Eminem concert, clearly you already know what they’re going to hear musically. Sure, you may have to have a conversation in the car on the way home to explain what the rapper meant at the end of his Melbourne show when he asked the 80,000 strong crowd “If you’re not f--ked up on some kind of illegal substance how many of you are just f--ked up in general?” but that’s par for the parenting course.

Eminem has been touring Australia this week. Picture: Jeremy Deputat

Admittedly it’s Eminem’s older music that was more problematic than his more introspective recent work — the music made since he put down the pills and got sober. These were the songs written as his alter-ego, Slim Shady, who had violent fantasies about his wife, his mother, addressed themes of suicide and murder as well as plenty of drug use and sexual imagery. He was playing a character, although his concerts still bring out some real douchebaggery with aggro-bro’s fist-pumping, vaping and spilling beer as they feel they have licence to live out their own Slim Shady fantasy for 90 minutes. Again, not what you’d really want your kids to see.

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Part of Eminem’s skill was to subversively wrap his dark lyrics in bright pop-influenced tunes, with some lyrics that even mimicked nursery rhymes. You can still see why songs like My Name Is and The Real Slim Shady became major pop hits — they are seriously catchy and humorous. However, back then he also used to compromise and would record G-rated versions of lyrics about driving drunk, assaulting Pamela Anderson or driving nails through his eyelids for radio and MTV. Those versions might still be on YouTube for younger fans to watch, but it’s the explicit versions he performs live.

It is harder these days to monitor what children and teenagers listen to, unless you’re stealth about installing parental controls on YouTube and streaming services like Spotify and Apple. If you’re not, you’ll find acts like Eminem don’t have “clean” versions of their songs, and while their songs with language and extreme themes are clearly marked ‘explicit’ often they’re the ones children are attracted to first.

While Eminem records “clean” versions of his songs, he performs the uncensored version live. Picture: Theo Wargo/Getty

The justification for Eminem’s lyrics if often that they are simply fiction. Which is true, but if that’s the case, how is stumbling across a dead body on crime shows on prime time TV any worse and worthy of an M rating? Add inwords like “whore”, “slut” and “bitch” to their vocabulary, and you’ve got an early Eminem song.

Kids now mature earlier, including in their musical tastes which means they’re moving faster from Hannah Montana to Miley Cyrus.

I remember watching a few parents who’d taken five and six year old daughters to see Rihanna’s concert and not being prepared at all for the singer writhing on a cannon half-naked, busting out stripper moves on a pole and firing off some pretty salty language.

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Although when you have a song called S & M and the lyrics contain the line “chains and whips excite me” you should have had some inkling it wasn’t going to be a Hillsong convention. Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus concerts here have also pushed the boundaries — their songs appeal to kids, but the stars no doubt like to think they’re selling tickets to cool 20-somethings. Which might explain why Katy Perry was shocked on her last tour when seven year old girls were nodding off mid-show because she hadn’t come on stage until after 9pm.

Maybe it’s the “cool parent” factor, but whatever you think of Eminem, his lyrical delivery means he’s considered one of the greatest rappers of all time. In 20 years it might be like your parent taking you to see Elvis or Frank Sinatra or Adele or Madonna when you were a kid. Just with added m---ther f---kers.

Cameron Adams is a national music writer.

@cameron_adams