As Eminem’s career has progressed, and incidentally, as he’s matured, one of the criticisms often geared towards him is that his voice and his flow have changed. Of course, it’s perhaps not that surprising of a statement, given that voices do change over time, especially when one uses their voice as a living, however, in the latter half of his career, many fans have found that Em’s trademark pitched vocals and seemingly easy flow has transformed into something a bit harder, a bit more difficult to digest, and a bit more aggressive.
This sort of criticism perhaps reached its peak when Eminem dropped MMLP 2 in 2013, his first project since 2010’s Recovery, and thus one that had a ton of anticipation surrounding (not only because of its name). During his new podcast interview with manager Paul Rosenberg for Paul Pod: Curtain Call 2, the two discuss Eminem linking up with Rick Rubin to create MMLP 2, and Eminem touches on the feedback surrounding his vocals and delivery, revealing the issue at the center of it for the first time.
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
As they get into a discussion of the album, Eminem reveals, “Something you said was that ‘it wasn’t digestible’ or something like that. So I let off the gas. Some people like when I rap fast, some people don’t. So I was trying to make songs that were more digestible, but I’m also always worried that if I just do that, people are like ‘oh he fell off, he can’t rap anymore’.”
Paul replies, “At the time, I probably felt like based upon feedback, experience etc, that you were doing something too much, and I don’t remember exactly what it was,” before Eminem elaborates on the issue.
“Actually at that time period, I don’t know if we’ve talked about this publicly, but I know me and you have had the discussion about, there was a few years where, my tinnitus was getting really bad. The ringing in my ears was almost louder than the music so what started happening, is slowly but surely over time, I started putting extra mid-range in my voice,” Eminem says, before mocking his own vocals and flow with a strained, aggressive-yelling delivery. “Because for me to get it out and be able to hear it, for whatever reason, that was the tone that was easiest for my ears to hear the inflections and shit like that. And as we went to LA and saw that doctor, and the tinnitus started getting better, I pulled back on the vocal a bit. But going back and listening to that shit now, I didn’t leave any gaps, everything was like, there was no parts to be able to breathe.”
The two go on to discuss some of the rock-infused records on MMLP 2, including “Berzerk.”
Check out the full episode below, or head here to find out Em’s stance on the accents used across Relapse and if there would ever be a Relapse 2.