Eminem’s goal for The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce) was to symbolically close the book on his Slim Shady alter ego. However, the conclusion is not the happy ending listeners may expect. On “Somebody Save Me” featuring Jelly Roll, Eminem raps from the perspective of him succumbing to his addictions and passing away. The Detroit, Michigan native is loosely making a callback to his 2007 overdose that nearly ended his life. Throughout the song, Eminem apologizes profusely for putting his vices (Slim Shady) above his now three kids, Hailie, Alaina, and Stevie, instead of being there for their biggest accomplishments. His children make a lot of appearances in his lyrics as his Stans know and when they do, he tears himself down a lot for not being the best caretaker for them.
The acclaimed MC has also stated this belief numerous times in interviews as well, like the one with Rolling Stone in 2004 via People. “Bein’ a dad is definitely living a double life. Even before Hailie was born, I was a firm believer in freedom of speech… But once I hit them gates where I live, that’s when I’m Dad… I’m not sayin’ I’m the perfect father, but the most important thing is to be there for my kids and raise them the right way”. It is part of the reason why “Somebody Save Me” is such an emotional ride for longtime fans of Eminem and even Jelly Roll. Both have had their respective grizzly bouts with drugs, and hearing the pain in their deliveries makes for a scary and sad what-could-have-been ending in the context of the album, but also in general.
Right now, I’m just weak As I fall further down in this deep hole And farther in the ground that I sink As they lower me in my coffin, I feel the tears all fallin’ down on my cheek
Eminem might just be the Detroit’s favorite rapper after all. Motown rapper 42 Dugg, appearing on The Breakfast Club to promote his debut album 4eva Us Neva Them on Friday (July 12), disputed his hometown compatriot Skilla Baby’s earlier comments that “I don’t think Detroit does… consider him our best rapper.”
As Dugg explained, “That’s probably how they feel. The new kids don’t even know about him. How would they? You have to really be a music person to go back… I know. That’s always my card when somebody get to bringing up somebody from somewhere else, I’m like, ‘We got Eminem.’ I feel like he the GOAT.”
He also defended the rap titan from criticisms that his music has aged poorly or relies too much on shtick to stick. “[Eminem] made deep music,” Dugg insisted. “I go listen to ‘Toy Soliders’ or ‘Stan’ — those my favorite songs. So when it’s my turn to make real songs, I already damn near know how to channel it. ‘Cause I already know what I’m looking for: I’m looking for a ‘Stan’ type of song.”
Skilla Baby made his comments in response to a query from Keke Palmer on her podcast, Baby, This Is Keke Palmer, telling her, “Numbers wise, Eminem is the best Detroit rapper, but the gag is nobody would say that in Detroit. Everybody had a turn being Detroit’s favorite rapper. Sada Baby had a turn, Tee Grizzley had a turn, Babyface Ray had a turn, Veeze is one of Detroit’s best rappers, Baby Smoove. Everybody had their turn being the best in the city. What we lack is consistency. Nobody has consistently been Detroit’s favorite rapper.”
Dugg isn’t the first younger rapper to defend Eminem’s legacy; in 2022, Jack Harlow also stood up for his idol, saying modern assessments that Eminem makes “circus” music “tragic.”
You can see the full episode of The Breakfast Club with 42 Dugg below.
Although, the “Tobey” rapper gave out a few flowers across the body of work, he couldn’t help but delivery a few jabs as well. On tracks “Lucifer” and “Bad One,” Eminem had a fresh round of disses for Owens.
Owens took to her official YouTube channel to clap back, calling Eminem a “lefty elitist” that “cosplays” as a race that he isn’t.
“You’re so irrelevant,” she said. “Your music isn’t good anymore, Granddad Shady. He is a lesson to a lot of people out there that you need to know when it’s time for you to retire.”
The nicknames (“Grand Wizard,” “Klandace,” and “Grand Dragon”) Eminem gifted to Owens weren’t as PG-13 not his sharp lines.
“And Candice O, I ain’t mad at her/ I ain’t gon’ throw the fact b*tch forgot she was Black back at her / Laugh at her, like them crackers she’s backin’ after,” rapper Em on “Lucifer.”
On “”Bad One,” Eminem rapped, “she turned her back on her own race,” in reference to her public supporter of Donald Trump and critics of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Listen Eminem’s songs “Lucifer” featuring Sly Pyper and “Bad One” featuring White Gold below.
The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce) is out now via Shady/Aftermath/Interscope. Find more information here.
There are lot of things that help define the career of Eminem and one of them is his dark past. It is how this entire character/alter ego, Slim Shady, came to be. Since his path to superstardom kicked off at the end of the 1990’s, he has steadily come to grips with his issues. On The Death of Slim Shady, Eminem is working to close this troubling chapter on “Habits”. It features former collaborator White Gold (Music To Be Murdered By) and at the very start of this near five-minute track, Em has a familiar conversation with Slim Shady.
“Thought you got rid of my a**, huh? (Let me go, you sick f***) Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do (Piece of s***) You take this (No) / Or I put a bullet between your f***ing eyes (I don’t wanna)“. Eminem eventually does comply and takes half of an Ativan (drug for epilepsy, anxiety). On White Gold’s chorus, he sings from the perspective of Slim and how Em needs him and wants him to stay. This is his latest attempt to put his problems behind him and it is something he has continuously tried before.
But he has failed to fully accomplish that goal and it could seem that way still. Slim Shady goes from body bag to casket on the cover of the deluxe. The titular character is also now wearing a Jason Voorhees mask on in his casket. If you know anything about the iconic horror movie villain, you know that he is almost unkillable. Maybe it is just for this bonus track version and Slim is gone for good going forward. But we will just have to wait and see until the next Eminem project.
B****, you ain’t about head (What?), about face (Woo) Little white, middle-age, upper-middle-class With a glass of wine and your cigarette B****, get off the internet (Yeah) You ain’t even fed your kids dinner yet (Haha, still) Parental discretion, mental aggression, my head’s a Smith & Wesson
Big Sean has been away for a long time. The rapper’s last album was in 2020, and the first single for his upcoming album, “Precision,” got buried by the Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar battle. Fortunately, the buzz is starting to swing back Sean’s way. He delivered a standout verse on the new Eminem single “Tobey.” He also dropped some knowledge on fans about his iconic “Mercy” verse. The most exciting revelation for Big Sean’s new album came on July 12, however. The rapper teased a collaboration with producer icon The Alchemist.
Sean uploaded a snippet of the new song on Instagram. The chatter that we hear sounds like the first couple seconds of the song, with the rapper talking about seizing one’s dreams. “You shouldn’t wait for the world to come to you, you gotta go get this shit, baby,” he says. “Sun shining, breeze and sh*t. Take it all in ’cause one day it could all…” The production is smooth, with a saxophone riff playing prominently throughout. Sean’s caption suggested that the song, which is untitled, might be dropping sooner rather than later. “Guess i gotta go again n show them it ain’t luck…”
Despite being industry veterans, Big Sean and The Alchemist have only worked together once. Sean dropped a stunning guest verse on the Larry June song “Palisades, CA” in 2023. The track was laced with Alchemist’s flourishes, as was the entire album. “Palisades, CA” was considered by many to be a 2023 standout, so it’s exciting to see two of the three artists on the song reunite. The Alchemist has many different styles as a producer, but the snippet suggests that he gave Big Sean more of the lush instrumentation that he skated on previously. No complaints here.
Both Sean and The Alchemist have ties to Eminem. As mentioned, the former dropped a solid verse on “Tobey.” The Alchemist, meanwhile, claimed he’d been working on The Death of Slim Shady prior to its release. None of Alc’s beats made the final cut, but he’s worked with Eminem on multiple songs over the years. He’s also Eminem’s tour DJ. Hopefully Sean and The Alchemist can keep the Detroit magic going strong.
Eminem and MGK have been oil and water for a decade. They’ve trash-talked each other in interviews, and dropped memorable diss tracks. Eminem is widely considered to be the winner of the battle, but he usually comes out on top of lyrical contests (Mariah Carey notwithstanding). Eminem and MGK have not mended fences since their beef peaked in 2018. Which is why Em’s decision to address the beef, along with several others, was so surprising. The rapper is really trying to reckon with the past on The Death of Slim Shady.
Eminem name drops all over the new album. “Guilty Conscience 2” is perhaps the most intriguing example of name dropping, though. Instead of insult them, Em decides to hold a mirror up to himself. He argues, in the form of both Em and his alter ego, Slim Shady, whether he was in the wrong to engage in beef. He names Nick Cannon, Christopher Reeve, and even Will Smith, but the one that was most surprising was MGK. “God, you piece of sh*t, that does it (Uh-oh, wait),” Em raps. “Yeah, b*tch, this is for him (What?). Christopher, MGK, Nick, and for Limp Bizkit and them.”
The adlibs are meant to be Slim Shady, while Eminem wrestles control of the song and his narrative. He’s come to the conclusion that he doesn’t want to beef anymore. At least, with the names he mentioned (he seems to have a problem with Caitlin Jenner elsewhere on the album). MGK stands out, though, because he gets a second reference on the song. “Guilty Conscience 2” ends with Eminem killing the Slim Shady persona and fulfilling the album’s title. In doing so, he uses the name of the diss song that he released against MGK. “Last hoorah, I bid you goodbye. Murder suicide,” Eminem spits. “Killshot, booyaka, c*ck sucker. Coup de grâce, motherf*cker.”
MGK has voiced frustration with Eminem in the aftermath of their beef. He told USA Today that his music wasn’t taken as seriously in the wake of “Killshot.” “[Hotel Diablo] was coming off the tail-end of that infamous beef,” he noted. “So no one wanted to give it the time of day.” MGK has rebounded as a pop punk star, and Eminem has seemingly moved on from the vitriol to a healthier place. Hopefully the two of them can keep the past in the past.
Eminem’s been at this rap thing for a very long time — and unfortunately, over the past few years, he’s started to show his age. While still as technically proficient as ever, the battle rap veteran has also seen his musical output over the last half-decade or so stultify, with only his most loyal fans appreciating his efforts at being “the best rapper” and not making “the best albums,” as he once put it.
And so, his latest, The Death Of Slim Shady, might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but there is something interesting here. On the album’s opening track, “Renaissance,” Em does something that’s become rare for him, depending on who you ask: He makes a great point. In a diverting excursion “inside the mind of a hater,” the 51-year-old notes, “I don’t see no fans, all I see’s a bunch of complainers.” Over the course of the song, he expands on this concept, illustrating his true worry: That fans caught up in nitpicking their favorite rappers won’t appreciate what they’ve got ’til it’s gone.
Lord knows, rap fans love complaining about a perceived dearth of care and craftsmanship when it comes to the art of rhyme. It seems every decade, there’s a new subgenre of rap to rail against: When I was coming up, it was “ringtone rap.” More recently, “mumble rap” has been the target of so many criticisms, while elders of the rap game, from Kool Moe Dee to Joe Budden, have always decried the rise of each successive wave of youngsters who rejected tradition, rewrote the rules of rhyme, or otherwise broke from established norms of hip-hop.
Yet, while doing so, they seemingly overlook so many of the contemporary rappers who seemingly deliver exactly what they want. When rap critics deplored the culture’s slide into criminality in the ’90s in efforts to feed the hunger for “thug” imagery, so-called “conscious rappers” like Common, De La Soul, and A Tribe Called Quest were ridiculed — if not outright ignored — by the mainstream. When “jiggy rap” ruled the airwaves, B-boy traditionalists like Mos Def and Talib Kweli toiled away on the underground circuit — the same circuit that spawned Eminem himself.
Even Kendrick Lamar, who Em name-checks in his “Renaissance” verse (“‘Kendrick’s album was cool, but it didn’t have any bangers’,” says the mind of the hater), has pointed this out in his own discography. On “Hood Politics,” from his 2015 album To Pimp A Butterfly, Kendrick raps, “Everybody want to talk about who this and who that / Who the realest and who wack, or who white or who black / Critics want to mention that they miss when hip-hop was rappin’ / Motherf*cker, if you did, then Killer Mike’d be platinum,” acknowledging how the Atlanta rapper’s commercial reception rarely lived up to his critical acclaim.
On “Renaissance,” Em drives the point home, name-checking a slew of other alternative or underground ’90s rap acts, along with some of the better-known ones to illustrate how quickly time sweeps away artifacts that aren’t appreciated enough to be preserved. Wise Intelligent and Cella Dwellas are two acts with impeccable reputations for potent, well-crafted rhymes, but the height of either act’s commercial reception was Cella Dwellas’ 1996 debut Realms ‘n Reality, which only peaked at 160 on the Billboard 200. They haven’t put out anything since. Wise Intelligent’s last album was released in 2018, and truthfully, researching for this piece was my first time hearing about it.
Em also calls out Big Daddy Kane, who was once regarded one of the foremost lyricists in all of hip-hop, a pioneer who helped advance the technique used in rap by light years ahead of where it was when he first debuted in 1986. Yet, by 1994 — less than 10 years later — he was being treated as an also-ran, with the lukewarm reception of his sixth album Daddy’s Home prompting him to take a long break from releasing music. He still raps, making occasional guest appearances on projects from the long (long, long, long) list of rappers he’s inspired — including Little Brother, MF DOOM, Rapsody, The Roots, and more. But he hasn’t made a new album since 1998’s Veteranz’ Day, and he’s largely considered a relic of the Golden Era, not a titan of the culture like proteges Jay-Z, Eminem, and Black Thought.
Uproxx’s Elliott Wilson called 2024 the best year in hip-hop, hands down. Putting A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie at No. 5 on his best albums list and overlooking albums from LA County natives like Schoolboy Q and Vince Staples notwithstanding, I agree. So, apparently, does Eminem, who goes out of his way to give a nod to J. Cole’s Might Delete Later. But with all these great rappers making great albums, rap fans seem caught up in their disappointment about projects they don’t like or that fell short, or in the contextual circumstances of those albums, like dismissing J. Cole for bowing out of the Kendrick Lamar/Drake beef.
Eminem harps on the past on his latest album to warn us what could happen in the future. Rap fans who’ve wanted lyrics to return to the spotlight have had a smorgasbord in 2024, but if they keep overlooking the good, they’ll only be left with the bad. At that point, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.
At one point in time, Eminem was the big bad wolf of hip-hop. To this day, the “Tobey” rapper doesn’t care who he offends or lyrically shoots at. But Eminem does have one soft spot, and it’s for his daughter, Hailie Jade.
Eminem seems to be excited to bury his alter ego, as seen in his latest album’s title, The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce). But there is another homecoming service atop his mind. On his song, “Temporary” featuring Skylar Grey, Eminem provides Hailie Jade with encouraging instruction on how to heal once he passes in real life.
“A lot of people ask me, am I afraid of death,” he says as the track opens. “The truth is, I think what scares me the most is not being able to say all the things I wanna say to you when I’m no longer here. So this song is for Hailie, for when that day comes.”
Throughout the track, Eminem sprinkled in throwback home audio clips of him and Hailie Jade. He playfully asks, “Where’s Hailie? Where’s she at?”
The eager then-toddler replied: “This ain’t Hailie, it’s a monster!”
Eminem fast forwards to present day to give his daughter of instructions for how to deal with his death: “Hailie Jade, I wrote you this song / To help you cope with life now that I’m gone. How should I start? Just wanna say look after Alaina, Stevie, and Uncle Nate / And sweetie, be strong.”
Listen to “Temporary” below.
The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce) is out now via Shady/Aftermath/Interscope. Find more information here.
LL Cool J‘s long-awaited Q-Tip-produced 14th studio album has officially been given a title and a release date. The FORCE (Frequencies of Real Creative Energy) will be LL’s first new album in 11 years, and arrives September 6th via Def Jam Recordings/Virgin Music Group. Clocking in at 14 tracks, it will boast guest appearances from a who’s-who of both classic and contemporary rap stars, including Busta Rhymes, Eminem, Fat Joe, Nas, Saweetie, and Snoop Dogg.
“[I was] going back to the drawing board and learning how to rap again,” he told the Associated Press of the new album’s creation process. “The LeBrons, the Stephs, the Jordans and the Kobes, they all go back to the drawing board, they always try to make themselves better. I wasn’t trying to do trendy, and I wasn’t trying to recapture anything I did before.”
That included scrapping previous versions of the work, such as one he said he recorded with 50 Cent during his interview with The Breakfast Club last year. “When it was done, I listened to it,” he recalled. “I’m like, ‘It sounds good. I like the music, it sounds cool, but it ain’t me.’ So, I ain’t put it out.”
The FORCE (Frequencies of Real Creative Energy) is due 9/6 via Def Jam Recordings/Virgin Music Group. You can check out its first single, “Passion,” above, and see the tracklist below. Pre-order it here.
The FORCE Tracklist
01. “Spirit Of Cyrus” Feat. Snoop Dogg
02. “The FORCE”
03. “Saturday Night Special” Feat. Rick Ross & Fat Joe
04. “Black Code Suite” Feat. Sona Jobarteh
05. “Passion”
06. “Proclivities” Feat. Saweetie
07. “Post Modern”
08. “30 Decembers”
09. “Runnit Back”
10. “Huey In Da Chair” Feat. Busta Rhymes
11. “Basquiat Energy”
12. “Praise Him” Feat. Nas
13. “Murdergram Deux” Feat. Eminem
14. “The Vow” Feat. Mad Squablz, J-S.A.N.D. & Don Pablito
Eminem has always been someone who is never afraid to air things out on his albums, so it is no surprise he is doing it again on “Fuel”. This is one of 19 tracks off the Detroit MC’s highly-awaited 12th studio album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce). “Fuel” features the likes of Georgia MC JID, a collaboration that makes a lot of sense on paper. Both have elite pen games, and their flows are almost always engaging. Thankfully, the track really comes together in all phases, and it makes “Fuel” one of the major highlights.
So, what is Eminem getting into on this cut? Well, with him being one of the most intimidating figures in the genre, it is not wise to diss him. For example, the hip-hop community saw what happened to mgk after “Rap Devil”. It seems the hate gives Eminem extra juice to unleash on any competitor that tries to step to him, and its why naming this song “Fuel” is such a W. However, what also makes this track fun is that Eminem is playing the role of the instigator. He is coming for Diddy’s neck and does so in a clever manner. He starts of the series of bars with, “I’m like a R-A-P-E-R (Yeah) / Got so many S-As (S-As), S-As (Huh) / Wait, he didn’t just spell the word, “Rapper” and leave out a P, did he? (Yep)“
It combines wit and humor to the nth degree, talking about Diddy’s longlist of sexual assault allegations. Then, Em continues to unleash on him by referencing how Diddy allegedly hired Keefe D to put out hits and two of rap’s legends. “R.I.P., rest in peace, Biggie / And Pac, both of y’all should be living (Yep) / But I ain’t tryna beef with him (Nope) / ‘Cause he might put a hit on me like Keefe D did him“. Overall, Em and JID split great verses over a glitchy and dark trap production and it’s one we highly recommend.
Homie got a heart full of hate and a face full of war paint Eyes all red, full of rage and it’s hard to escape from a dark place East side n****s from the A, n****s all ages Tryna sell a pound of the dog cage All the OGs ’round town was our age Danger, sex, and drugs, X and R rated
