Eminem wrestles with ghosts on his new album “The Death of Slim Shady”
Eminem and 50 Cent perform on stage in Detroit during their farewell tour at Pine Knob
Eminem performs with 50 Cent at the Pine Knob Music Theater in Clarkston, Michigan on September 17, 2023.
Brian McCollum, Detroit Free Press
When Eminem revealed the title of his latest album in April, he left one big, pressing question unanswered: What exactly was his intention with “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)”?
Early Friday morning, the answer finally came. Eminem buried his evil alter ego before the culture of 2024 does it for him.
The first two-thirds of the Detroit rapper’s new album is a broadside of shocking rap, with occasional old-school flairs that revive the vocal mannerisms and meanness of his Slim Shady persona. It’s a voice that unleashes its venom on the hearing impaired, the trans community, the overweight, the disabled and the pronoun-conscious. The lyrical targets range widely—from Lizzo to MAGA commentator Candace Owens—while jabs at Caitlyn Jenner and the late Christopher Reeve are a recurring theme.
And then comes “Guilty Conscience 2,” a verbal showdown between Marshall Mathers and Slim Shady. “You’re still 13 mentally / And still thirsty for controversy,” the rapper tells his evil twin before the inner monologue fires its death shot: “I welcome you to my last hurrah / I bid you farewell / Murder-suicide.”
Early on in the album, songs like “Evil,” “Antichrist,” and the Dr. Dre-produced “Lucifer” play on Shady’s thoroughly corrupt reputation in an over-the-top hall-of-mirrors kind of parody, while simultaneously anticipating backlash from feminists, Gen Z, and other perceived potential censors.
“Someone gotta come and hit the reset button to go back to 2003, cause how did we get stuck in this woke shit?” raps Shady.
It’s controversy for controversy’s sake, once a staple of Eminem’s creative repertoire, but now delivered by a 51-year-old artist who appears to be seriously considering his legacy and his place in hip-hop, as his 2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction speech made clear. It might be easy to accuse him of having the best of both worlds—spewing lyrical nastiness and blaming one person—but the reality is more nuanced.
Eminem warned fans Thursday that The Death of Slim Shady is a “concept album” that should be taken in order. The first 13 tracks are certainly that, but the rest of the record is a thematic mishmash that seems disconnected from what came before. The final section contains a couple of slower, family-focused songs — “Temporary” and the Jelly Roll-esque “Somebody Save Me” — that feel oddly tacked on.
The album is a Detroit-heavy effort and features plenty of collaboration with longtime keyboardist and songwriter Luis Resto, a cameo from old D12 colleague Bizarre (“Antichrist”), and a fake news segment narrated by Devin Scillian and Kimberly Gill of WDIV-TV.
“In an astonishing move, Detroit rapper Eminem has released an album that essentially attempts to neutralize himself,” Scillian announces, as Gill “reports” from the scene of downtown demonstrations against the rapper.
The album is full of echoes of The Eminem Show and Encore (in the case of Brand New Dance, which was mostly recorded in 2004, quite literally), although it would be inaccurate to call it a retro effort. The production is tight, the wordplay reliably clever, the vocal flow confident and versatile.
Dre, making a significant contribution to an Eminem album for the first time in several years, takes the co-producing chair twice (“Lucifer,” “Road Rage”), but his vocals are not featured. Guests include his longtime collaborator Skylar Grey (“Temporary”), Shady Records artist Ez Mil (“Head Honcho”) and Detroit rappers Big Sean and BabyTron (“Tobey”), while “Fuel” is a hard-hitting track with a fiery contribution from Atlanta’s JID.
All in all, Slim Shady – the wild, wacky alter ego that Eminem used as a creative outlet for more than a quarter century – seems to be buried. It was a persona he dreamed up on a toilet in 1997, when the struggling rapper was looking for a way out of his stagnation in Detroit’s hip-hop scene.
The structure of the new album had already provided some clues. The upbeat single “Houdini,” a throwback to 2002 hit “Without Me,” suggested a disappearing trick – a message reinforced by an accompanying social media post in which Eminem called it his “final trick.”
And then there was the black-and-white ad in the May 13 edition of the Detroit Free Press, a fake obituary that mentioned Slim Shady’s “sudden and terrible end.” This was followed weeks later by an online clip showing the character’s tombstone.
The cover features Eminem peeking out from a body bag and features an old-fashioned nod to the ’90s – a “PARENTAL ADVISORY” sign warning listeners of explicit content.
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