Mike the Executioner
What went on up there? Poppers and weird sex!
Like I’ve told you…he can still do it when he WANTS too. For whatever reason he just wants do that rapid fast flow. Almost to challenge himself…
And honestly when it comes to “Relapse” I can understand why Em doesn’t fukk with that album like that. Even though his core audience LOVED that record (myself included) to the casual listener it showed that he had no growth. The public looked at that album the same way we all look at Drake after he dropped CLB. Same subject matter, same type of beats, same wacky single, same ole Marshall.
I mean WE liked it cause he was gone for 4 years and he was giving his core Stanbase VINTAGE shady. For other folks it turned them off.
It wasn’t challenging enough for him..
Which is why “Recovery” happened and became Em’s first “mainstream pop” album. After that him and his people leaned into it TOO much and THATS when Em’s flow started to change.
I lowkey blame his manager Rosenberg cause I feel he was the one pushing Em to go in that direction
The backlash of “Revival” was lowkey a wake up call for Em and ever since then he has slowly started going back to his regular self flow wise. It’s a process…but I feel he will get back to it.
I definitely understand that. The fact that his first album in five years got a mixed, confused reception disappointed him to the point where he had to do the complete opposite on his next album. He had enough material from the Relapse sessions for four albums. Relapse 2 was just a matter of picking which songs and finding a release date. Once fans and critics thought Relapse was mediocre, Eminem internalized it and started believing it, even though a rap nerd like him should realize that he was killing it lyrically. It's the closest we've gotten to prime Eminem front to back. Dr. Dre produced damn near the whole album like it was the 80s again. A song like "Insane" is talking about disgusting shyt, but the flow and delivery were phenomenal.
Eminem is a very reactionary person. Whenever people tell him something, he either leans into it more like a troll or goes in the opposite direction. Revival messed with his confidence and ego in a way that he hadn't experienced since Relapse. He was forced to make Kamikaze. Even when he put it out, he said he tried not to overthink it. Revival took at least a year to make. Kamikaze was about half that time. No pop features except for one, less songs, no country rock beats, just an angry man going after everyone that tried saying something about him. It makes you think, "Why can't he do this all the time?" He probably made Kamikaze just to show people that he could do it. You remember the "Chloraseptic" remix? It's like somebody smacked him as hard as they could and told him to step up.
I look at what Nas is doing with Hit-Boy and I wonder if Eminem will ever have something like that. Someone like Dre or the Bass Brothers that he can lean on for production while he focuses solely on the bars. Someone that can tell him, "That sounds like a bar, say that. The mic's right there, say that." Someone that can tell him that Kamikaze is the standard he should be reaching at this point in his career. A really strong executive producer or curator that won't just let him do whatever he wants. But who knows?
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