Many of you may know I'm a big hiphop head.
I'm lucky enough to have grown up through the "Golden Era" of the art form. I remember buying cassette tapes and recording Rap City right off my TV.
I'd stay up late and tell my parents beforehand not to bust into my room because I didn't want any background noise to make it onto my recording. Yeah I'm really that old 😁
I'd bump that shit in my room and dance in front of my full length mirror like a dumbass. I had my baggy jeans and FUBU shirt on ofcourse. 😎
Meanwhile in the background I'd hear my parents yelling for me to "turn that crap down!" They didn't understand it one bit 😂
Late 80's thru the 90's was the pinnacle of hip hop in my opinion. Back when rappers used words as art to tell a story, then gangsta rap hit the scene and rap was going mainstream. The music got darker and the whole East vs West thing made people pick a side and support whoever you felt had the hottest beats and the freshest rhymes.
This was good and bad, the good was that the rap battles pushed creativity thru the roof in the fairly new genre, the bad was that alot of the best rappers were killed as a direct result.
In 1997 a white rapper hit the scene and immediately turned heads. Marshal Mathers, a Detroit born MC, was introduced by Dr.Dre to the predominantly black genre and audience.
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Noone thought he would last very long, there were already a couple of white rappers try but none of them were any good, you could almost tell they were trying to hi jack black culture and profit from it. It wasn't genuine and it was pretty easy to tell they were faking it.
Sure there were alot of white kids already listening to hiphop at this point, but Eminem's presence made us legitimate for the first time in hiphop. We weren't just wannabes or pretenders anymore, we had a white kid that could really spit, he wasn't corny or fake, he was a real rapper.
I remember listening to his first commercially available album, The Slim Shady LP on my Sony Walkman. I had never heard anyone rap or tell such dark stories about so many controversial topics before and I was immediately hooked!
He eventually won a Grammy for the best rap album that year and blew up and grew up out of the relatively small segment that was hiphop. Many attribute this to the fact he was white, but there's no denying he was a master of the craft.
He would later prove his prowess by battling some of the top rappers in the game and even destroyed a few careers along the way. Popular west coast rapper and another artist familiar with his fair share of rap beefs, The Game, was interviewed about Eminem. He was asked if he'd ever engage Eminem in a rap beef and he said, "Nope, the white dude kills people!" A testement to Eminem's ability to rhyme and battle, he can absolutely destroy people who aren't smart enough to steer clear of his lyrical skill and creativity.
Eminem has sold over 50 million records to date. He has 10 #1 selling albums on the Billboard charts and 15 Grammys. He also starred in 8 Mile, a semi autobiographical movie about himself that won an Academy award and featured one of his most famous songs "Lose Yourself."
Needless to say he's made a name for himself as one of the top artists on the planet for almost the last 20 years.
He's also notorious for not touring, which is odd because most artists make the majority of their money off of touring and preforming the songs from their albums they put out.
In 2011, when I heard he was headlining an outdoor festival in Montreal named Osheaga, I bought tickets the first day they went on sale and flew there with two of my best friends to see him live. I don't think I have to tell you that it was incredible!
So with all the success he has earned, and the fact he's been dominating rap for almost two decades, I'm finally going to get around to the point of my story..
Do you guys and girls think that Eminem is starting to finally decline?
He is 45 years old now afterall, which is a grandpa in the rap music scene. Em has a new album named Revival that was supposed to drop last month but has since been delayed.
The single "Walk on Water" featuring Beyonce tanked. That song sucks shit and that's the opinion of someone who is a really big fan.
Usually Beyonce or Eminem could sing the friggin Alphabet and it'd skyrocket to #1, put both of them on a track and you'd think it be ultra successful but that's not the case here.
Although he got applauded for the cypher he did dissing Trump on the BET Awards a couple months ago, in my opinion it was pretty weak effort and I've seen him do alot better. Is there a chance we're at the point of witnessing the decline of Eminem?
Here's the tracklist he just released for the new album via Twitter
His last album and the few singles he's released over the last couple of years haven't been very good in my humble opinion.
His rhyme schemes seem to be too intricate, most people know and appreciate the fact that he can spit some super lyrical shit, but his rhymes just don't seem to flow properly anymore, almost like there's just too much going on inside for them to be easy or comfortable to listen to.
I'm not sure if he's trying to go so far from today's mumble rap/just terrible display of wordplay, that it's just too far in the other direction?
I'll be eagerly anticipating a full listen of the new album to see what he's going to bring to the table? I hope it's good but my hopes aren't very high unfortunately.
From a quick look at the tracklist, I see the usual list of non rap singers, that I imagine will be in charge of some of the songs hooks..one notable addition is Alicia Keys, I'm a huge AK fan so I hope that's alot better than the one with Beyonce! You'll also notice Pink, Ed Sheeran and the X Ambassadors are on there, which has some people online questioning the relevance of the album.
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One theory I heard is that he's offering up one tracklist for what will be a mainstream offering of radio friendly songs, and that he may surprise everyone with another tracklist to debut the fact that this will actually be a double album and his last, possibly going into retirement.
If that is true I hope he goes out with a bang and leaves on a high note! It'd be nice to see him drop an album full of classics like most of his albums have had in the past.
As always I appreciate your thoughts,
He's way to main stream for his own good
MM is too classic to fall off!! He is a master at what he does. You don’t need to keep producing more and more and more. . A true lyrical genius.
Yeah you could say he has the body of work and the track record to already fade away and be one of the best to ever do it. Nothing lasts forever, maybe a better question was do you think he'll retire? Or retire like Jay Z did and come back 2 years later 😁
Don’t think he is someone who knows how to retire. He will always be in the game. Probably similar to Snoop.
He is really amazing
He is the best
I think he's definitely one of the best. He checks all the boxes. Thx for reading!
Yes I feel he has. He needs to get back to roots.
Yeah I prefer his older stuff for sure. But maybe he's not rapping for me and doing whatever he wants lol..he's got enough $ to whatever the F he wants to do 😎
I heard the track in the car the other night and my son said "Hey Dad, is that Eminem?"
I said "No wa.... hold on... yeah it is! Oh man! That's bad!!"
Pretty impressed my son knows who he is though.. His old stuff must still be worthy.
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I think he is still in the game. His lyrical game has turned into somewhat of a chaotic ramble at times, but I think that has always been him to a degree. He spits fire, and he is a legend. I don't think he can rap like he used to though. It's not the same Em. The intensity, anger, and struggle has evolved and softened.
I remember when his first album came out. Everyone I knew was listening to it. Was like 10 lol
Rap God was an epic tune and one that I thought signified that he still had loads to give. But as you say, he's 45 now and as Em himself once said to Ray Benzino; 'nobody wants to hear their grandfather rap, nope'.
For me it was amazing that he was still good after the first 2 albums. They were so full of anger, that I remember thinking; will he be any good when he's not so angry anymore?
As to whether he's fallen off, never to return, only time and crappy album sales will tell :-)
Cg
He was groundbreaking and got many into the genre
I hope this album doesn’t bust and he can go out and retire in style
Sadly some just don’t know when their time is up and spoil the end if their career
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Excellent post! It must have been quite a show live! Totally agree with you that rap has changed a lot with the years, the beginnings were so much better. Do you still have those tapes btw? Who knows if eminem is just having a bad phase or not but nothing can erase those first albums (also that Dr.Dre 2001 he played on)
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