Despite changing norms around language and public behaviour, Eminem — an artist who has made a career of thumbing his nose at social mores — has persisted. Photo / Chad Batka, The New York Times
Despite changing norms around language and public behaviour, Eminem — an artist who has made a career of thumbing his nose at social mores — has persisted. Photo / Chad Batka, The New York Times
The rapper unleashes more provocative lyrics on his 12th album, and new generations are defending him — rather than rushing to criticise him — online.
Twenty-two years separated Without Me, Eminem’s cocky, impish and defiantly tasteless 2002 smash, from Houdini, the lead single from the rapper’s latest studio album, TheDeath of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce). But the new track, with its sneering tone and catalogue of quips that make punchlines out of both Megan Thee Stallion’s 2020 shooting and contemporary identity politics, transmits a resounding message: In the world of Eminem, nothing much has changed.
Since the #MeToo movement exploded in 2017, reckonings around sexual harassment, toxic workplaces, body positivity and gender identity have changed cultural expectations for language and behaviour. Young people, surprised at what the generations that preceded them endured and accepted, have largely led the charge, helping “cancel” offending figures in campaigns that ignite on social media.
Yet Eminem — an artist who has made a career of thumbing his nose at social mores, rapping lyrics that can be seen as glorifying violence against women, mocking the infirm and normalising homophobic slurs — has persisted. All nine of his albums released this century so far, including three since 2017, have debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Houdini, which came out in June, opened at No. 2 on the Hot 100 singles chart, his best solo showing since 2010.
The Death of Slim Shady, Eminem’s 12th album, arrived Friday, and what’s striking is how wide his support base remains — and specifically how much loyalty he has engendered among younger listeners who might be expected to find his wordplay offensive, if not abhorrent.
For several years, a handful of online voices, amplified by the media, have helped stoke the notion that members of Gen Z would like to see Eminem retroactively cancelled. (Eminem plays with the idea himself on the new album’s Antichrist.) Upon the release of Houdini, one TikTok user called out a lyric about a Siamese “transgender cat” that “identifies as Black” that seemed designed for maximum antagonism. In a widely viewed video, the poster scoffed at listeners who still engage with Eminem, 51, a figure he referred to as a “grandpa.”
But sincere posts like that were rare, and dozens more pushed back in the comments. “He’s supposed to be controversial, it’s his whole marketing gig,” one commenter wrote. The same story is playing out across Reddit, where younger listeners consistently defend Eminem. One laid out a road map of sorts for younger fans of the rapper: “acting like Gen Z can’t be progressive and enjoy Em’s antics at the same time, they can do both, I’m doing both rn.”
Instead, the idea of an intergenerational battle over whether Eminem ought to be cancelled has gained traction on TikTok — as a source of satirical videos.
Last month, a user known as Lucas portrayed figures from various generations — Gen X, millennial, Gen Z and Gen Alpha — in a clever rapid-fire comedy short that has racked up more than 5 million views, in which the Gen X and millennial characters insist repeatedly that their Gen Z counterpart is “triggered” by the new single. “There is no one out there who is seriously trying to cancel Eminem,” the Gen Z representative retorts. “I have no idea why both of you do this every couple of years.”
Eminem accepting a Grammy in 2003. His 12th album arrived last week. Photo / Vincent Laforet, The New York Times
Eminem himself does seem to have generations — and his legacy — on his mind. The Death of Slim Shady has been marketed as a farewell to the smirking persona he introduced in the late 1990s. Guilty Conscience 2 is a showdown between Slim Shady and Marshall Mathers (his given name) that ends with a gunshot — and the possibility the battle was just a dream. Its second single, “Tobey,” features lyrics boasting of his place in the rap pantheon and a feature from BabyTron, a 25-year-old rapper from Detroit — where Eminem is also from — representing his hometown’s future.
Some TikTok users have chronicled how Eminem has actually strengthened their bond with their children. Upon the release of Houdini, Chrissy Allen, who specialises in lighthearted skits and shorts, posted a video captioned, “My 8 year old son is obsessed with Eminem and I couldn’t be prouder.”
“We were playing Eminem’s Mockingbird one day, and he knew all the words to it,” Allen said in a joint video interview with her son, Brady, from her home in San Diego. “And I was like, ‘Man, how do you kids know this?’ Even though he hates all the other music I listen to. But for some reason, Eminem is just one of those cool ‘90s artists that’s cool to listen to for kids.”
Brady said that he discovered Eminem through background music from soccer videos he watched on YouTube Shorts, and that he’d also encountered the rapper in the video game Fortnite, where he appeared last year as a Godzilla-esque giant while performing his 2020 single of the same name. “I just think that his rapping is really fast,” Brady said.
“Once you know the words, you’re like, ‘This is good,’” he added with a smile. “‘I like this.’”
Eminem’s acrobatic lyricism has long been part of his appeal. In earlier eras, music critics praised the rapper’s virtuosic delivery and provocative wordplay even as they expressed concern over what he was actually saying. In a Rolling Stone review of his 2000 album, The Marshall Mathers LP, Touré called him “the most quotable MC alive, both consistently funny and ridiculously far over the top,” but also noted that his “insistent, tiring gay bashing almost begs you to hate him.”
Last month, Justin Charity, a staff writer for The Ringer, reflected on both how little Eminem has evolved over more than 20 years, and how little that fact seems to matter in terms of his sustained impact and success. For more than a decade, Charity writes, Eminem has “successfully defied every ageing critic and each disillusioned fan imploring him to grow up.”
Violence — cartoonish and not — and over-the-top skewering of celebrity culture have always been part of the Eminem equation. But the rapper is also known for Lose Yourself, the stirring self-empowerment anthem from his biographical movie, 8 Mile, and songs about his drug addiction and recovery, which he charted on two albums in 2009 and 2010.
For some younger fans, Eminem isn’t a cultural lightning rod so much as an inspiring artist who speaks to them on a visceral level. Emma Filipović, a 16-year-old vocalist from Austria whose renditions of Eminem songs including Mockingbird and Lose Yourself from The Voice Kids have tens of millions of views online, said that when she first heard the rapper about five years ago through her older brother, she was drawn to his work despite the language barrier.
“Back then, even though I didn’t really understand the lyrics, I still felt the emotion he transported. But now that I understand it more deeply, I feel like he always talks about his life struggles, pain, family issues he went through,” she said in a video interview. “So it really means a lot.”
Elaborating on what draws him to Eminem, 8-year-old Brady seemed to sum up the feelings of many who are engaging with the rapper in the present, free from the baggage of controversies past or present: “I just like his rapping.”
