Eminem releases new album The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce): listen

Eminem released his new album The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)After previewing his first album since 2020 with “Houdini” and “Tobey,” the Detroit rapper delivered a concept album about the milestones and controversies of his career. Listen below.

The concept record, Eminem said, is about the final arc of his alter ego, Slim Shady. To promote the LP, he used images of tombstones and published an obituary in the Detroit Free Presswhile inviting fans to listen to the record in order. Throughout the album, he confronts his alter ego and his controversial past. One tongue-in-cheek verse proclaims, “Kendrick’s album was cool, but it didn’t have any hits / Wayne’s album or Ye’s album, I can’t tell which one sucked / Joyner’s album was corny, Shady’s new shit is way worse.”

Elsewhere, he more explicitly distances himself from the Slim Shady persona in verses that, in a throwback to his climax, take pains to offend as crudely as possible. “Antichrist” fusses over pronouns and (in Shady’s voice) “woke bullshit,” before promising to “spit a line” that’s “so hard Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj will split in two.” The second verse addresses the harrowing video, released on May 17, of Diddy attacking his then-girlfriend Casse in a hotel in 2016:

But who else is so ruthless, in fact witty and crude, hideous
Horrible and insidious like me, or spit as nasty?
The next idiot who asks me if he gets his ass kicked harder than Diddy
But in reality,
She probably ran out of the room with her fucking dildo
He tried to clear her by kicking a field goal, she told him to calm down.
Now put it back in my ass and take the steel tip

To drive the point home, the album cover depicts Slim Shady in a body bag and the video for “Tobey” shows Eminem taking a chainsaw to kill Slim Shady.

Although “Tobey” guests Big Sean and BabyTron are the only artists featured, Dr. Dre is credited as a producer on “Lucifer” and “Road Rage,” and Bizarre raps a verse laden with transphobic imagery as a coda to “Antichrist.” On “Road Rage,” Eminem addresses the issue directly: “So transgender rights, where do I stand? Oh, I’m all for it, I’m really pro/But sex with you, would I have it? No”—and continues in the same vein.