Where The Hell Is The New Eminem Album?

Wally Bryton8 years ago

It’s been 4 years since Eminem dropped The Marshall Mathers LP2, a sequel to his most beloved/highest selling classic album. Admittedly, it didn’t really feel like a sequel to MMLP (other than the opening track “Bad Guy”, which is a sequel to “Stan”); it felt like a gimmicky title selected just to sell copies. Regardless it was definitely a great album. Sure, it wasn’t perfect — the fast-paced, intense yelling and jumbled “rappity rap rap rap” style got grating at times, and Em still had an unfortunate fondness for homophobic slurs at the time — but it was still a damn good album.

It had the insanity that was “Rap God,” but it also had “Headlights,” a song wherein he apologizes to his mom that is arguably the best Em song of the 2010s. Eminem built a career out of tasteless lyrics about murder and rape, but him saying he loves his mother is still the most shocking thing he’s ever said.

Since then, he’s laid pretty low, though he did have a hilarious, scene-stealing cameo in The Interview, release a compilation album with his label mates titled Shady XV, and produce the Southpaw soundtrack in 2015. That’s all well and good, but where’s the new solo album, Slim?!

For years there’s been internet chatter about a new CD, and last year he confirmed it with a tweet.

When he did so, he gave us “Campaign Speech” to hold us over. A 7-minute, rambling, hookless series of insane rhyme structure and random imagery (complete with some Donald disses for good measure), it was about about absolutely nothing and it was borderline nonsensical — but the unreal verbal acrobatics and lyrical pyrotechnics made up for it.

So what’s the hold up, Marshall? We’re waiting for the real Slim Shady to stand up, please. Rap is crowded with new modern kings (Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Chance The Rapper, MattyB, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence); come join the stage with them. Contribute to the culture like you always do and give us some new damn music.

I figure that Eminem probably has a lot of pent up guilt regarding ignoring fan letters after what happened with Stan, so I figured I’d write a letter to him to reach out:

Dear Slim,
I wrote you but you still ain’t calling,
I left my Twitter, my Insta, and my Snapchat at the bottom,
I sent you my shitty articles in autumn,
You must not have got ‘em.

I know you probably hear this everyday, but I’m your biggest fan,
TFM readers want you to kill me, let me know if you can.

I hope you get this, man. Hit me back
Just to chat,
Please call me,
Your biggest fan, this is Wally

(Don’t worry: that song does end with me killing myself)

#BARZ.

Image via Shutterstock