Dre production and witty bars, they’re replaced by shoddy attempts at mainstream adaptation and petty stabs at provocation.
“Kamikaze” may not be flawless, but it comes closer than he has in years.Yet these tracks are only good in comparison to the rest of the album, most of which is a shoddy and inferior retreading of 2009’s Relapse.Īs clearly evidenced by the title, MTBMB is another Slim Shady attempt at horror-core but instead of underrated Dr. “What I’ll never be is flawless… all I’ll ever be is honest,” Eminem rap-sings in his usual flinty cackle, heading into the sunset of self-deprecation and generational disgust. He’s not exactly woke, but Eminem is waking up. Yet, when coupled with the aforementioned “Guy” tracks, you sense that Eminem has grown into an ominously social-satirical critic (or critique) of the misogyny for which he’s been deservedly accused.
#Eminem album review crack#
Trump-dissing comedian Kathy Griffin gets a shout-out on the title track with “Kathy Griffin, stackin’ ammunition / Slap the clip and cock it back on competition.” Soulful flavor-of-the-moment (deserved) Canadian Jessie Reyez gets a back-to-back crack at Skylar Grey glory on two tracks themed around toxic masculinity, “Nice Guy,” then “Good Guy.”Įm then goes in for the meta self-commentary of “Normal.” As he has been insistently accused of deeply vicious misogyny in his lyrics, the jaw-dropping mea culpa of “I slipped up and busted her jaw with a Louisville Slugger,” and its squirrelly rationalization (“it really does make our love for each other grow stronger”) may not allow you to see him as any less vile. So who does Eminem save deep and abiding respect for? Women. Em also unleashes savage vitriol on Lil Yachty by shrieking, “Do you have any idea how much I hate this choppy flow everyone copies?” He imitates Lil Wayne and rips “Gucci Gang” for having subpar bars. Starting with “The Ringer,” he takes no prisoners when it comes to the Lil likes of Lil Xan and Lil Pump. To be sure, Eminem’s voice hasn’t sounded quite so cranky, silly, impassioned or enraged since his early days.īypassing most of his famed loathing of Trump (on “The Ringer,” Em even sounds regretful that his BET cypher was bitchy to The Donald’s constituency, rapping, “If I could go back, I’d at least reword it / And say I empathize with the people this evil serpent sold the dream to that he’s deserted”), “Kamikaze” focuses most of Eminem’s racing caustic disgust with his own trade. This is where the album gets good and catty. Like Muhammad Ali throwing a rope-a-dope, Eminem is drawing you in with weirdly dippy mimicry so as to slap lazy listeners out of their doldrums (much as he needed to do to his own turgid music post-“Revival”), in hopes that we’ll realize that hip-hop is getting stale in its production and lyrical tropes. Eminem even goes as far as to shout “Tay Keith,” on the chilly theatrical “Not Alike,” in a sound-a-like Drake/”Scorpion” moment (listen to Drizzy’s recent “Nonstop” for that reference). Dre also pull from more contemporary fare, Playboi Carti’s “Woke Up Like This,” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble,” the latter of which anchors the pulpy “Kamikaze” cut, “Greatest.” Like the trap beats-filled “Not Alike,” the dense sonics of these two tracks feel modernist, cold, and overly reliant on newly familiar tropes. At the very least, he’s putting the sense of inspiration and wonder to good use on the cover of his 10th album, which borrows liberally from the sleeve of Beastie Boys’ 1986 LP, “Licensed to Ill.” With the fighter plane’s burning nose and its tail initialed “FU-2,” it’s fun seeing Eminem pay tribute to the goofy poetry and the off-putting misogyny of the other white meat.Īlong with that nod to old school hip-hop, and another by way of the aged Def Jam snag from LL Cool J’s “I’m Bad,” Em and his executive co-producer Dr.
So he sharpens his knives, refuses to “overthink this one” (so says his Tweet announcing the surprise drop) and wears his most prominent influences, old and new, on his sleeve.
With the whole of “Kamikaze,” Eminem is wagering that he can’t be beat. But Eminem sounds like he’s prepared to prove why he is his own GOAT. “Don’t tell me about the culture,” he spits on “Fall,” from “Kamikaze.” “I inspired the Hopsins, the Logics, the Coles, the Seans, the K-Dots, the 5’9s, and, oh, brought the world 50 Cent.”īoastful, yes. Here, in a heated, sing-song-y tone faster than the syllables-per-second of his famed “Rap God,” Eminem cut down the lameness of new-fangled hip-hop and the young MCs who dared to follow in his footsteps. Another example of his speedy, gutsy, accusatory and/or salacious rhymes came through his featured guest verses on “Majesty,” from Nicki Minaj’s “Queen” album.
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