It may come as a surprise to many, but I love Rap music. Old school rappers from the seventies and eighties, the nineties with its more aggressive and offensive rappers, all the way to modern day with Kendrick Llama. I even listen to Rap in multiple languages German, English, Danish, Spanish, and Farsi. I also listen to it in languages where I have no idea what is been said. It is the chain of words combined with the rhyme and beats that leads me to rap. In the beginning I did not know it was black music, I did not even know the artist I was listening to where black. Doc, Ice-T, and MC Hammer are just a few examples. Then in the Late ninties I heard a song called the Real Slime Shady and I was an instant Eminem fan.

Here over 2 and half decades later Eminem released a new Album called The Death of Slim Shady and frankly, I love it. But why do I love it? Well we get the best of both worlds. For those whom do not know, Slim Shady is Eminems dark alter ego. The character he use when he does very dark, aggressive, and right out horrifying rhymes. Slim Shady came in part from Eminems substance abuse and was powered through it. However, in April of 2008 he went on the straight and narrow, and have been for sixteen years now. As part of this he made some albums which focused more on the technical part of rapping rather than just being obscene. Which also left Slim Shady in the dirt. The music he has produced in this period has still been amazing to me. It has been different but amazing.

Then back in 2020 we got the album Music to be Murdered by. When I listen to this album, I felt like there was a change. It felt more like an old school Eminem album, almost like Slim Shady was rearing his head again. Even though I do not know Eminem in person, I was a little nervous if he had dabbled in substance again. But this year, he shared a post (I believe on Instagram), with his sixteen years sober token. Quite frankly amazing feat.

But why did I speak of all this, when discussing why I love the new album? Well, because we got Slim Shady back and in way I believe few expected. On the album there is a song called Houdini, for which the music video ends with Eminem and Slim Shady fuses into a single person. And that is why the album is magical, because that is what has happened it is what album gave. It gave us EminemSlimShady. He morphed his two sides and create music that was technically amazing and very old school Eminem/Slim Shady. He showed that he do not need the substances to be Slim Shady. Somehow, magically, he found a way to merge them both and create a nostalgic trip for us whom haven listen to him for ever and a new version of himself.

I hope we do not lose the very technical Eminem we got, for I love that part to. But thank you Eminem for giving us this.

./Lars