Mosh (song)

"Mosh"
Single
Digital single by Eminem from the album Encore
Released	October 26, 2004
Format	Digital download
Genre	Hip hop, hardcore hip hop, political hip hop
Length	5:17
Label	Shady, Aftermath, Interscope
Writer	M. Mathers, A. Young, M. Elizondo, M. Batson, C. Pope
Producer	Dr. Dre, Mark Batson
Encore track listing
"Curtains Up" (Encore version) "Evil Deeds" "Never Enough" "Yellow Brick Road" "Like Toy Soldiers" "Mosh" "Puke" "My 1st Single" "Paul" (Skit) "Rain Man" "Big Weenie" "Em Calls Paul" (Skit) "Just Lose It" "Ass Like That" "Spend Some Time" "Mockingbird" "Crazy in Love" "One Shot 2 Shot" "Final Thought" (Skit) "Encore/Curtains Down" Bonus Tracks "We As Americans" "Love You More" "Ricky Ticky Toc"

"Mosh" is a protest song by Eminem and Guerrilla News Network, released on October 26, 2004 as a digital single, just prior to the 2004 presidential election.

The video for the song is available free on the Internet and encouraged voters to vote George W. Bush out of office. The song was excerpted from Eminem's album, Encore, not yet released at the time the video was made available to the public. G-Unit rapper Lloyd Banks also appears in the video.

This song is ranked 58th on About.com's "100 Greatest Rap Songs" ^[1]

Goals

According to the Internet Archive (a host for this video):

“

On the eve of one of the most spirited elections in recent times, its [sic] time to try and turn out the vote. With more than 55 million voters between the ages of 18 and 35, this demographic group accounts for 36% of the total eligible voters in the U.S. And as witnessed in 2000 it all comes down to who shows up to vote on election day.

”

The goal of increasing the percentage young voter turnout was not reached. While more young people showed up to vote in the 2004 election than in 2000, their percentage of the overall vote remained the same (17%) due to an increase in voters of all ages. Eminem later told an Irish paper that he wished he had released the video earlier because he felt that perhaps it would have inspired more young people to vote.

Music video

The music video for "Mosh" is entirely cartooned. It features a school in the beginning saying the Pledge of Allegiance, then to reveal Eminem performing in Iraq for U.S. troops where a large crowd is gathered, one of which returns home later to his wife and children only to find he has been sent back to Iraq because of George W. Bush's strategy to send more troops to Iraq during his time in office. It also shows a young African American man who sees the Ku Klux Klan movements on his TV. He then joins an army of protesters, led by Eminem. By the end of the video, Eminem and the protesters are shouting at George Bush.

Post-election videoclip

A second version of the videoclip was released after the 2004 presidential election, where the crowd is not bursting in to register to vote but rather entering the United States Capitol during Bush's State of the Union Address. In this version, they then proceed to make their demands heard by the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress. It shows then-Vice-President Dick Cheney suffering a heart attack.

Pre-election videoclip

The original videoclip for "Mosh" depicts a crowd bursting into a voter registration site.

Free Video Download

The demand for this video within hours of its release in October 2004 was so huge that it was served from multiple locations by http, as well as ftp servers and bittorrent. According to archive.org:

“

...GNN.tv produced a get-out-the-vote Eminem video that they uploaded to the Archive. While we have a gigabit connection to the Internet, even that is being pounded by this movie. We are serving more around 2 videos each second at this point (that is about 500 Mbit/s between the US and the EU archives)." ... "...we are getting 10's of thousands of downloads just for that file...".

”

Personnel

"Mosh" was produced, directed and edited by Ian Inaba of GNN TV

• Art direction by Anson Vogt of Phong.com
• Character animation by Haik Hoisington of blackmustache.com
• Motion graphics by Steve Ogden of steveo.tv
• Illustration and animation for the video by Craig Patches
• Eminem character animation by Kevin Elam
• After Effects by Mark Nicola
• Green screen production and camera by John Quigly
• Illustration design by Thomas Brohdal, with support from Nicholas Sanchez

"Mosh" was a Guerrilla News Network production.

Track listing

CD single

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Producer(s)	Length
1.	"Mosh"	M. Mathers, A. Young, M. Elizondo, M. Batson, C. Pope	Dr. Dre, Mark Batson	5:18

Chart positions

Though not an official single, the song received a moderate amount of airplay and digital success, enabling it to enter the music charts.

Chart (2004)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles	12

References

1. ^ [1], 100 Greatest Rap Songs.

• MOSH VIDEO RE-EDITED, ContactMusic.com, November 30, 2004

External links

• Eminem mosh mp3
• [2]
• Read reviews or download "Mosh"
• Read reviews or stream "Mosh," -- smaller file-size version from The Internet Archive
• Read reviews or download the updated version of "Mosh"