Eminem has “brought back Slim Shady”. Should he have?
The only rapper that Eminem can’t out-rap seems to be himself. Ever since the disastrous Encore, there’s been a clear divide between ‘Slim Shady’ and Marshall Mathers. Slim Shady was addicted to sex, drugs, violence, and shocking an audience that came by. Marshall Mathers was the man who wrote songs that reflected his honest self, the person who sent Stan a signed baseball cap and encouraged him to seek help, or reflect on the impact of his music on Sing for the Moment. And despite the memes, despite the horrific reception of Revival, and despite his instantly forgotten dive into NFT’s with Snoop Dogg, people still love Eminem. I don’t think I truly love any post-Eminem Show songs from him, but I know many people who do, and I’d be lying if I said there weren’t as many hits as there were misses. So now that Eminem has been sober for over ten years, that his daughter is married, why bring back this juvenile drug-addicted persona?
The first paragraph of this article is mostly true, but it has some key errors, and hopefully the correction of them will illuminate things. Firstly, have Eminem’s recent works had more hits than misses? Well, on Music to be Murdered By he proved that he could work well alongside a younger crop of rappers like Young M.A. and Juice WRLD. On Doomsday pt. 2 he proved that he’s still the battle rapper he always was (even if it didn’t need proving). But even if the hits have been plentiful, the misses have hit deep. The opening of his BET freestyle has become infamous, “awfully hot coffee pot” becoming the shorthand way to evoke rappers that rhyme a lot without actually saying anything. Even if the comparison of Eminem to the cringe-inducing wannabees on youtube or wherever who believe they’re the “real hip-hop” is unfair, it is one that’s very easy to make. But more than anything, modern Eminem seems to make critics and audiences alike ask “what happened to Slim Shady!?” (it isn’t hard to ask yourself that after hearing him say “I can make orange rhyme with banana/ borrrrrnana”). So Eminem is taking this chance to remind these kids what Eminem used to be like over twenty years ago, and that he can still be that man.
And his latest single Houdini is a solid attempt at it. He isn’t locked into a shouty, staccato flow, and he’s clearly having fun (but not in the groanworthy way bornana was). The video is especially fun, having modern Eminem work with Dr. Dre to catch an Eminem that escaped from 2002 with the fun twist that modern Em is still doing the same things he was in 2002. It’s good. It isn’t Slim Shady. When I go back and listen to The Slim Shady LP or The Mathers LP what stands out the most when compared to Marshal Mathers is that Shady is not trying to have the flashiest flow imaginable, and just happens to have a mind-melting flow anyways. Slim Shady’s main focus is usually in the punchlines, and they match or succeed some of the best Lil Wayne bars. Beyond the homophobia on the albums that’s typical for the time, the main things about the album that truly shock are the graphic violence towards women. Regardless of how you feel that content has aged, violence against women is not something easy to joke about in 2024, so if Eminem does want to shock people today, how is he evoking the specter of Slim Shady?
The main way is in the last verse, where Eminem goes in on Paul, his lawyer who has had a skit on most of his albums where he begs Eminem to tone down his lyrics, and has lines for Dre, his manager, and even his kids. It’s fun, but not actually anything menacing. It’s much more cute than edgy. Beyond that, the standout lyric is him asking “If I was to ask for Megan thee Stallion to do a collab with me, would I really have a shot at a[her] feat(feet)?” Which unfortunately doesn’t stand out in a particularly good way. I don’t think the lyric is a diss against Megan or an attack on Black Women like I’ve seen some people on twitter indicate, but I don’t think it’s actually very funny. The wordplay about having a shot at Megan’s feet and having a shot at getting a feature makes sense, but what the punch line is beyond the wordplay is foggy. The second thing wrong with the first paragraph is also something wrong with this entire article: framing Slim Shady and Marshal Mathers as different people makes it impossible to fully understand either. The reason why the shocking rhymes on Eminem’s early albums hold up so well is because you can see just under the veil, that the misogyny was (in part) a response to trauma, that the drug references reflected the real problems he faced, that all the messed-up things he said were meant to reflect the messed-up society we live in. When I listen to Houdini, I don’t hear anything underneath. If that’s true, should he have brought back Slim Shady at all?
