The rapper’s latest studio album features the previously released singles “Houdini” and “Tobey”
Eminem has put the final nail in the coffin of his alter ego. The rapper’s 12th studio album The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce) has arrived.
The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce) was preceded by the lead singles “Houdini” and “Tobey,” featuring fellow Detroit rappers Big Sean and BabyTron. The record features 19 tracks, including early-career callbacks in a sketch titled “Guess Who’s Back” — one of three interlude-style tracks — and “Guilty Conscience 2,” the follow-up to his 1999 Dr. Dre-assisted single “Guilty Conscious” The Slim Shady LP.
Eminem brutally dismantled Slim Shady for weeks leading up to the album’s release. In the music video for “Tobey,” he literally dismembered his infamous alter ego with a chainsaw. His other shots at Slim were less gruesome. In May, he published a fake obituary in the Detroit Free Press mourning the character’s supposedly “tormented existence.”
“His complex and tormented existence has come to an end, and the legacy he leaves behind is no closer to resolution than the manner in which this character departed this world,” the obituary reads.
“A product of Detroit who began his career there as a rogue splinter in the thriving underground rap scene of the mid-to-late ’90s, Shady first became a household name in 1999 with the release of his playfully deranged single ‘My Name Is,’ which — along with its uniquely striking video — introduced the young artist and his lyrics to a wider audience,” it continued. “Eventually, the things that seemed to be the tools he used became calling cards that defined an existence that could only end suddenly and horribly.”
The memoriam ended with: “May he truly find the peace in the hereafter that he could not find on earth.”
The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce) marks Eminem’s first full-length release since 2020 Music to get killed by.