Which ones are you thinking of?
EncoreThe 2004 album Encore doesn’t carry any of Eminem’s career highlights, but it still managed to sell over 1.5 million units in its first week. It’s his only major-label album to date that didn’t win a Grammy for Best Rap Album. Tracks like the virulently anti–George W. Bush “Mosh,” though, presaged the political content on Revival. was mediocre, and with
RelapseThe 2009 album Relapse ended a five-year recording hiatus and reintroduced the Slim Shady alter ego, along with a host of other voices. The album is generally thought of as, at least in part, a tribute to horrorcore rap, which accounts for its often violent, gory tone. — it was the best I could do at that point in time. [
Relapse] was a funny album for me because I was just starting back rapping after coming out of addiction. I was so scatterbrained that the people around me thought that I might have given myself brain damage. I was in this weird fog for months. Like, literally I wasn’t making sense; it had been so long since I’d done vocals without a ton of Valium and VicodinAround 2002, Eminem began using Ambien, Valium, and extra-strength Vicodin. After the death of his friend the rapper Proof in a club shooting in 2006, he was consuming “40 to 60 Valium” and “maybe 20, 30” Vicodin a day. In December of 2007, after introducing methadone to the habit, he overdosed and missed Christmas with his children, prompting his path toward sobriety.. I almost had to relearn how to rap.
Is that where all the weird accents on that album came from?
I recorded at least 50 to 60 songs for that album and on each one I would get a little more drastic with the accents, trying to bend the words and make them rhyme in ways they wouldn’t if you just said them regular. It was this gradual thing and I didn’t even realize how accent-heavy the album got. PaulPaul Rosenberg has managed Eminem since the recording
of The Marshall Mathers LP, and co-founded Shady Records with the rapper in 1999. He’s also a recurring character on Eminem’s inter-song skits, playing the straitlaced lawyer asking him to “tone it down a little bit.” Rosenberg was recently named CEO of the iconic hip-hop record label Def Jam, a position he’s expected to assume in early 2018. [Rosenberg] didn’t realize it either until he went and played the music for somebody at Interscope and they were like, “Why is he doing all those accents?” So yeah, I don’t know how much replay value that album has.
What was the issue with Encore?
I’m cool with probably half that album. I recorded that towards the height of my addiction. I remember four songs leaked and I had to go to L.A. and get DreSince first hearing Eminem’s ’97
Slim Shady EP, NWA member, producer, Aftermath founder, and Beats Electronics CEO Dr. Dre has had an influential hand in Eminem’s career, co-producing all of his albums. and record new ones. I was in a room by myself writing songs in 25, 30 minutes because we had to get it done, and what came out was so goofy. That’s how I ended up making songs like
“Rain Man” and
“Big Weenie.” They’re pretty out there. If those other songs hadn’t leaked,
Encore would’ve been a different album.
How are you feeling about Revival?
I don’t know. I feel good enough to put it out. I guess we’ll have to see what the reaction is.