Guess who's back? Overnight, Eminem surprised fans by dropping his tenth studio album, Kamikaze, two years after the release of Revival. Eminem executive produced the 13-track album with his longtime collaborator, Dr. Dre, and worked many other prolific producers, including Fred Ball, Boi-1da, Illadaproducer, Ronny J, Tay Keith, Mike WiLL Made It, Jeremy Miller, S1, Tim Suby and Jahaan Sweet. Joyner Lucas, Jessie Reyez and Royce da 5'9" also make guest appearances. "Tried not 2 overthink this 1... enjoy," Eminem tweeted, adding a middle finger emoji. Like Ariana Grande with Sweetener and Travis Scott with ASTROWORLD, Eminem is selling his album in merch bundles, packaging it with everything from camo jackets to special lithographs. Throughout the album, he name-drops a number of stars, including 50 Cent, Charlamagne Tha God, Gabby Giffords, Kathy Griffin, Lil Xan, Lil Yachty, Logic and Machine Gun Kelly. The final track, "Venom," appears on the soundtrack for the upcoming film of the same name—but it's the title track that's caused a stir on social media. First, he criticizes the next generation of rappers, spitting, "These rappers are like Hunger Games / One minute, they're mocking Jay / Next minute, they get they style from Migos, then they copy Drake." In the next verse, he attacks Joe Budden, rapping, "Somebody tell Budden before I snap / He better fasten it, or have his body bag get zipped / The closest thing he's had to hits / Since smacking bitches."<doc-sep>“Do you have any idea how much I hate this choppy flow/Everyone copies though? Probably no/Get this fuckin’ audio out my Audi, yo, adios/I can see why people like Lil Yachty, but not me though/Not even dissin’, it just ain’t for me/All I am simply is just an MC” - "The Ringer" On the opening track off Kamikaze, Eminem wastes no time throwing shots at the new generation of hip-hop. A minute into the song, Em tells his listeners exactly how he feels about the mumble rappers dominating the scene today. Mimicking Lil Pump's "Gucci Gang" flow over a haunting Ronny J and IllaDaProducer beat, Eminem states his dislike for the overused delivery while refusing to play any mumble rap in his car. Em name drops Lil Yachty while possibly throwing a shot at him explaining Lil Boat’s music is not for him and he rather listen to another lyrical rapper like himself. “I don’t see why y’all even started with me/I get impeached, my enemies die/I don’t ceasefire ‘til at least all are deceased/I’m eastside, never be caught slippin’/Now you see why I don’t sleep/Not even a wink, I don’t blink/I don’t doze off, I don’t even nod to the beats/I don’t even close my fuckin’ eyes when I sneeze” - "The Ringer" On this verse Em is asserting his rap dominance by letting his detractors know, despite the lukewarm reception to his most recent works, he’s still the ruthless lyrical wordsmith we’ve come to love. He questions why people doubt him before going into a fiery explanation on why you can never count out Slim Shady. Eminem is at his best when he’s locked in and the lines that depict his work ethic of not sleeping (or blinking while sneezing) shows how far apart these new rappers are from reaching Eminem. “No more shiners, already too much time tokin’ rappers/ I hear you talkin’ shit, I’m just too big to respond to it/ God forbid I forget, go and jump out the window/ Somebody better child-proof it/’ Cause if I lose it we can rewind to some old Ja Rule shit/ And I can remind motherfuckers how I do shit” - "Greatest" On the second track off Kamikaze, Eminem uses a speedy Mike WiLL Made-It produced beat to explain to listeners why he’s been going strong for over 20 years. In the verse above, Em makes it clear he hears all the rumblings coming from the rappers aiming to surpass the Rap God. He’s too big of a person to respond to the shots, but if he were to forget how dangerous it was to revert back to his Slim Shady days, rappers would not be prepared on how Em really handles his business. Slim Shady has no issue taking a trip back to the days where he, along with 50 Cent and the rest of Shady/Aftermath, served Ja Rule and Murder, Inc. a hefty loss that’s still felt to this day. “Bars are like bullets when I spit them schemes/ That's why I call the motherfuckers M-16's/Float like a butterfly, I'm gonna sting like a bee/ You ain't harmin' a thing/I get a day hard as I'm gonna swing/ I'm gonna need to put my arm in a sling/But like a wedding band/ You gotta be diamond to even climb in the ring” - "Greatest" Eminem’s stellar wordplay is on full display here. Slim Shady compares his lyrics to the bullets of an M-16 assault rifle, nodding to the fact that a hip-hop verse normally contains 16 bars. When Eminem says he calls his bars “M-16’s” he is also calling it his own bars playing on the homophones “Em” and “M.” The lyrical assault continues as he uses boxing great Muhammad Ali’s famous quote, a boxing ring, and a wedding ring to explain how he’s untouchable. “Levels to this shit, I got an elevator/ You could never say to me I'm not a fuckin' record breaker /I sound like a broken record every time I break a record/ Nobody could ever take away the legacy, I made a navigator/ Motherfucker know I gotta right to be this way/I got spite inside my DNA/ But I work 'til the wheels fall off, I'm workin' tirelessly, ayy" - "Lucky You" featuring Joyner Lucas Again, Slim Shady declares his rap dominance over the mumble rap generation with a mind-boggling flow that goes from the triplet flow mentioned earlier to Em’s trademark automatic rapid-fire flow. Accompanied by Joyner Lucas, Em discusses how hip-hop has strayed far away from its roots with the “hatata batata” of mumble rap becoming the ongoing trend. In the verse above, Em makes it clear the new generation of rappers won’t disregard his work or legacy like they do with other rappers that came before them. Like he rapped earlier on the song, “Shit is a circus, you clowns that are comin' up/ Don't give an ounce of a motherfuck/ About the ones that were here before you to make raps.” "She's heartless/ No wonder we're partners/ Both got hundreds of charges/ Domestic disputes but we've always/ Swept it under the carpet/ Even when 911 gets the call that/ I slipped up and busted her jaw with/ A Louisville Slugger 'cause all's it really does is make our love for each other grow stronger/ She won me over the second she tried to run me over/ Told her I'd keep it a hun', we over/ Kicked her out, called her back now she's coming over” - "Normal" Expressing his need for a regular relationship, Eminem tells a vivid story in the lyrics above about his tumultuous relationship with a woman. He understands why they’re with each other as they’re the perfect pairing, sharing hundreds of criminal charges and domestic disputes. Despite their troubles, they’ve always moved past it even when Em attacked his girl with a baseball bat or when she tried to run him over. These moments, in Slim Shady’s eyes, are a sign of the couple's strong love. The lyric is a throwback to the violent rhymes Em rapped earlier in his career -- which was always controversial, but his ability to tell a story kept listeners intrigued.<doc-sep>US rapper Machine Gun Kelly has written a song in response to being dissed by Eminem on his surprise new album. Eminem released the 13-track record Kamikaze which is loaded with shots at those who criticised his previous album, Revival, which was released just eight months before. The rapper Machine Gun Kelly released a song called "Rap Devil" – clearly inspired by Eminem’s “Rap God” – and features some burning lyrics including mention of his daughter, Hailee, something Eminem warned him against on Kamikaze track “Not Alike.” "I think my Dad's gone crazy, yeah Hailie you right / Dad's always mad cooped up in the studio yelling at the mic," he raps, adding: "Homie, we know that you're the greatest rapper alive / F****** dweeb, all you do is read the dictionary and stay inside." Others to be skewered on Eminem’s tenth record include Charlamagne Tha God, Joe Budden and Lil Yachty. Tyler, the Creator – an outspoken fan of Eminem’s – is also mentioned, with Eminem directing a homophobic slur at the Odd Future rapper. His use of the word “faggot” has since generated a vast amount of criticism from listeners.<doc-sep>
The opener, “The Ringer,” accomplishes these aims in overwhelming fashion—he could have just released it as a single and claimed victory, as most of the rest of Kamikaze just serves as reiteration. Dipping into the trendy triplet flow and then accelerating into dexterous verbal barrages, he snipes at young rappers in specific (“Lil Pump, Lil Xan imitate Lil Wayne”) and in general (“I heard your mumblin’ but it’s jumbled in mumbo jumbo / The era that I’m from will pummel you”). He calls back to his Donald Trump disses of 2017, claiming that they earned him a visit from the Secret Service. He gripes at “media journalists” who panned him (or rather: “Meaty, a journalist / Can get a mouthful of flesh / And yes, I mean eating a penis”). He does it all in peak form, disgusting and entertaining, adding in a riff about color blindness just for fun. He delivers variants on the same routine over the next few tracks, though he does keep finding new hooks, greater rates of syllable delivery, and fresh annoyances to zero in on. Often, he plays a hip-hop version of Weird Al Yankovic, replacing the words of commonly heard flows with nursery-rhyme nonsense: “Brain dead, eye drops,” goes his version of “Bad and Boujee.” His point is that words don’t matter to kids these days, which is a fair—though also evergreen—charge that he predictably extends into a referendum on the intelligence of the generation below him. There are a ton of comparisons to be drawn between him and Nicki Minaj, another filthy poet who’s been chalking up her dwindling reach to the supposedly shrinking intellects of the younger masses. Really, though, Eminem is waging a war over aesthetics, and Kamikaze is a better listen than Revival because its concision confirms Eminem’s value as an entertainer: Turn the album on and, for however you respond to its homophobia and sexism and callous invocations of mass shootings, you might find yourself caught up as he ornately weaves one terrible thought into another. Recent albums by objects of Eminem’s ire (Playboi Carti, Drake) don’t even try for the same appeal. Instead, they radiate vibes, altering the listener’s perception of time; the resulting pleasures lack both the stimulation and fatiguing features of the Eminem experience. Maybe the popularity of that woozy, meaning-agnostic sound in this moment owes to the nature of streaming, or to the national mood. Or maybe it’s just the eternal pendulum swing between the poles of popular taste. Certainly it’s refreshing that in a genre especially obsessed with statements of dominance, Eminem doesn’t disguise his feelings of irrelevance. He does, however, try to claim his influence. Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Joyner Lucas, and a few other lyrics-minded Millennials get featured and/or name checked as disciples. Even his enemies owe him: “Cause if I’m the music that y’all grew up on / I’m responsible for you retarded fools.” Throughout, he strains his lungs and his brains, methodically arguing with critics who’ve nicked him for being too poppy or too wordy; his response is that they just can’t be pleased. He may be correct about that, and he’s proven once again that he’s great at what he does. But the darkest joke among all the punch lines here is that sweat and righteousness don’t guarantee the affection of others—not now, but also not ever before.