Rapper trails summer release of The Death of Slim Shady with a fictional crime report suggesting that the antic character will meet a violent endSet for release on an unspecified date this summer, the album was announced with a trailer that frames the demise of the antic character, with a crime reporter saying to camera: “Through his complex and oft-criticised tongue-twisting rhymes, the anti-hero known as Slim Shady has had no shortage of enemies … rude lyrics and controversial antics may have...
Slim Shady was a foul-mouthed, horny, cartoonishly disgusting provocateur who was introduced to the wider world with the single My Name Is, and its opening couplet: “Hi, kids, do you like violence? / Wanna see me stick nine-inch nails through each one of my eyelids?” With his nasal delivery, Slim Shady also became part of a multi-voice split personality, with Eminem also using his real name Marshall Mathers to express more sober material such as his classic story of fan obsession Stan, and “Eminem” a kind of bridge between the two. There was drama in the way the rapper seemed torn between the different sides of his personality, but by 2008 Eminem wrote in his memoir: “Slim, Em, and Marshall are always in the mix when I’m writing now.
But on recent LPs – Kamikaze and Music to Be Murdered By , each of them surprise-released – he has played again with the more provocative side of his artistry. Hewith the Music to Be Murdered By track Unaccommodating by – very Slim Shady-ishly – comparing himself to the terrorist who bombed an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena in 2017, killing 22.