While I like that Em played with our expectations of a rap-off with Kendrick and instead made a light-hearted track about failed relationships, structurally the song is a mess there’s no real hook and both Em and Kendrick rap over the beat than to it. Sure, it’s cool to hear a Zombies sample on Rhyme or Reason, the beat’s still not much more than the looped sample, and the same goes for Love Game. I don’t know if there’s a single beat on this album I’d want to listen to as an instrumental I suppose Bad Guy comes closest, but that’s mostly because I appreciate its understated vibe. Where MMLP2 struggles though is in everything that happens away from the mic. He may not put out music often, he may not engage in the the constant barrage of diss tracks and freestyles, but Em needs the world to know that, if he so chose, he could still outrap (almost?) anyone alive. And despite the occasional oddly outdated cultural references (had anyone thought of the Ray J versus Fabolous feud before Em devoted nearly 8 lines to it?) it’s impossible to listen to tracks like Rap God and Evil Twin and think his flow and delivery have missed a step. It can’t be a coincidence that the two lead singles were Berzerk and Rap God, both tracks that are little more than empty skies for Em to explode some rap fireworks into. In fact, his undiminished mic skills are really the centerpiece of this album.
This isn’t an album particularly concerned about making a larger statement, unless that statement is “hey, don’t forget, I can still motherfu**king rap”.
MMLP2 is about Eminem, celebrity culture, what it’s like for Eminem to be a celebrity, and not much else.
THE MARSHALL MATHERS LP FULL ALBUM DOWNLOAD MOVIE
He’s added a catchier more movie trailer-esque sound, what some call pop but I’ll just call Love the Way You Lie, but really, despite the upheavals in the world, despite his relapse and recovery from drug addiction, for better or worse Eminem at 41 is essentially the same artist as Eminem at 28-years-old. While Weezy has cycled through rock albums, Jay has become a Basquait rapper and Ye’s changed styles more times than Lil Kim’s changed noses, Eminem’s largely continued rapping about the same thing (himself and his personal demons) in the same breathtakingly precise, barrage of rap style. Compared to his rap peers - and in terms of success over the last decade really only Jay, Kanye, 50 Cent and Lil Wayne are his peers – Eminem’s music has changed the least. In 2013 though, the Marshall Mathers that just released his quasi-sequel 13 years in the making has both changed completely and not at all, which explains much of what makes MMLP2 both such a fascinating and frustrating listen. Listening to Eminem was never just about listening to Eminem, it was about supporting him in his quest to destroy the world, and in the process himself. A rapper who walked the razor thin line between rap fantasy and reality, sanity and insanity, so expertly that even when he was fantastically rapping about murdering his wife, there was always some part of you that thought he might, maybe, someday actually kill someone. He was a celebrity that burned down America’s shrines to celebrity every chance he got. Throughout the original MMLP, he held up a mirror to mainstream America’s failings and hypocrisies, and much of America hated him for it. Starting nearly the second after My Name Is dropped in 1999, Eminem became a lightning rod for controversy, and the release of his classic Marshall Mathers LP would cement his place as hip-hop’s leading firestarter, a title that he’s worn with pride for well over a decade now.
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