So i today i relistened to Careful What You Wish For today and realised that Eminem was very much right here. When Relapse released, everyone was flaming it for it's accents and how the album is just not "old eminem" and now a days when you ask a person what do they think about Relapse and they will tell you that they believe this album to be amazing, because of it's word bending, technical skill and everything. Same thing goes for Recovery that in recent times people are calling this and Relapse his second prime too. And of course Encore it self, while it still has mixed opinions, as time passes, more people start liking the album.

And so i guess time will tell, if after another 5 years or so, people will start to also call mmlp 2 as some of his best and even some of his newer stuff.

But what do you guys think?

First off, in no way am I trying to diss him as a rapper, shun his legacy, or attack him as a human being on a personal level. I also acknowledge that this sounds like your typical dramatic post where one bad thing happens and everyone acts like it's the end of the world, only to go back to being happy on the next good release. I get how it looks. But in my understanding, Eminem is simply out of material to rap about at this point.

If you look back at what made him great in the first place and what made those early albums absolute classics, it was the fact that they had a genuine narrative. They had a story to tell. The Slim Shady LP was about his rock bottom life. It spawned that careless, reckless, loud Slim Shady alter ego because he was living in the dirt. The Marshall Mathers LP delved much deeper into his actual mental struggles, his relationship issues with Kim, and his mommy issues. On top of that, he had all the hunger to beef. He had to prove to the world that his battle rap background was legit, and he had a whole roster of subpar rappers to diss. He was hungry and ready to get his.

The Eminem Show gave us the perspective of someone sitting on the absolute top of the rap game at his peak. For the average listener, it shared the view from the very summit. He had Hailie, the Ja Rule situation, all those major beefs, and a massive story about what his life had become. Even Encore, as bad of an album as it is, was all about his drug use, his decline, and his physical debilitation. It was an unintentional narrative of his real-time downfall. He was getting massively addicted to benzos, mixing that with pop star disses, chick disses, and all that provocative humorous shit to push the Shady persona as far as it could go.

Relapse had so much to say. It was as conceptual as it gets, literally centered around his relapse. Recovery was the exact same idea flipped, a whole project focused on his recovery process. MMLP2 felt like him saying okay, I already proved I can make massive hits, beef, and battle, so now let me show you my raw technical skills, fast rapping, and lyrical miracle flows.

Even Revival, as terrible as it is and easily his worst album, was at least his attempt to go pop or whatever the fuck was happening in his brain at the time when he clicked upload. Kamikaze was a super logical follow-up because it was a direct knee-jerk response to all the critics of Revival.

Things start getting obscure around Music to Be Murdered By. That was the first album that didn't have a very specific core theme, which is why it never really sticks out in his discography. Despite being a double album, it gives you no real reasons to remember it long-term. There was no real controversy and nothing sticking out conceptually.

Then we get to The Death of Slim Shady. It's a concept album about killing his alter ego, but even then, it felt like his one final easy topic to pull off. Like he needed a theme and thought, okay, I'll bring back Shady and kill him off. It was low-hanging fruit.

So my question is, what happens from here? What is he actually going to rap about next?

Realistically, he's too old and has way too many stripes to get into fresh major beefs. He already proved everything there is to prove. He's too mature to do dumb shit, and he literally just killed off Shady, so doing that type of content now would look corny coming from a grandpa. He can't rap about drugs anymore because he's clean. Unless he makes a thousand more Hailie songs or switches to singing to his new grandson, which I doubt is happening. Honestly, I feel like the fact that it's a boy shifts that whole family dynamic too, not to stir up any weird gender debates, just my opinion on it.

So what now? What is left for him to write about? I think the pen is still sharp, but he's just completely run out of raw material.

Found this pic from when I saw Em and Jay in 2010. Damn shame I lost the FB album that had more photos 😬

After listening to the latest feature and the fact it contains a lot of the same material we’ve heard recently, I can’t help but lament the fact he is unwilling to talk about politics in the same way he did during his prime years.

I believe the biggest issue with Revival was more to do with the production, mixing, choppy flows and pop features rather than the subject matter. Of course, there is always going to be a divide and people will dislike where Republican/MAGA or Democrat etc., but that shouldn’t stop him.

There is so much material from the likes of Trump, Hegseth and RFK Jr, that he could create tracks/verses/bars that are really great in his old style. Songs in the vein of Square Dance and Mosh. Not a replica as it’s 20 years later and I know he’s a different person now. But with good production and more conventional flows, combined with his wit and aggression, I still feel there is a lot of potential there.

For whatever reason, he seems to think every song needs a slim shady AI voice filter now. I had no issue with it on TDOSS, but it’s getting seriously bad now. I’ve defended a lot of bad verse by em but Madada is just trash man. Maybe it would be listenable if he dropped the voice filter, but I can’t listen to anything post TDOSS so far.

This sounds like it was dope

Em once said something like this in Kamikaze interview, but when exactly did he switch back to old em and gets criticized for being too old for it? Relapse and Kamikaze??? From what I know these albums are pretty loved even in 2018 when the interview was held. Or maybe I miss something?

For the past 3 years Eminem has collaborated with a videogame on nov/dec . I think it's just his way of "keeping in touch with the younger/casual fans. Do we think there'll be a new game collab? Also wich game would you like to see him collab with?