Slim Shady’s Startling Slide

Although it pains me to say this due to the fact that I’ve been following the man’s career since he had an album titled The Slim Shady EP that was so buzzed about among Hip-Hop heads that HipHopSite.com couldn’t seem to ever keep it in stock, Eminem seems to be done as an artist. His skills have been diminishing for a number of years now, but after hearing his painfully bad guest appearances on a number of remixes and album cuts it’s become clear that, whether all the emotion he previously had has left him, or he simply just doesn’t care about rapping anymore, the only thing the Eminem of today has in common with the Eminem of five years ago is a name.

For a lot of people “Ass Like That” was the last straw, for others it was the remix to “Lean Back,” still others gave up on Em after his truly terrible showing on Akon’s “Smack That.” For me, though, I held out a sliver of hope that Em could return to his old ways. The verse Em gives us on 50 Cent’s latest album, however, has proven, at least for me, to be the final nail in the coffin of his career. In fact, looking at Em’s appearances on 50’s 2003 effort Get Rich or Die Tryin' and the just released Curtis one can see a glaring example of how far he’s fallen.

When I first listened to Get Rich or Die Tryin' Eminem ruined the album for me, but in a good way. His verse on “Patiently Waiting” was so dope that everything else on the album paled in comparison (no pun intended). Intense, and with a fantastic flow, that verse would turn out to be Shady’s last stand. On 50’s latest album, Curtis, Em has another guest spot, this time on a song titled “Peep Show.” Em’s verse on “Peep Show” ruins not the entire album for me, but just that song and for the complete opposite reason that his verse from “Patiently Waiting” ruined Get Rich or Die Tryin'. Em’s showing on “Peep Show” is so bad, and so devoid of any of the qualities we loved Em for, that I skip the track. Personally, back when I was downloading freestyles of his off of Napster in 1999, I never thought I’d see the day when I'd voluntarily skip a track he was on.

From 1999-2004 Eminem ruled the world. He changed the way America thought about race, parenting and censorship and he even seemed to be having fun while doing it. I was lucky enough to cover one of his shows when he was at peak, the Anger Management Tour in the summer of 2002. He had an entire sold out concert space hanging on, and oftentimes repeating, his every word. One moment that I will never forget from that show is when he performed “White America” and the entire sold out, predominantly white, crowd chanted every lyric along with him. It was a stunning in display that there was incredible truth to his lyrics. I’d never seen anything like it before and I’ll probably never see anything like it again.

Fifteen years from now we may look back on Eminem’s five year run from 99-04 as one of the highest pinnacles an artist has ever reached. For now, though, he needs to put the microphone down, because it’s not 2002 anymore and he isn’t contributing anything worthwhile to Hip-Hop. Maybe Em’s first single has become a prescient prediction and he truly doesn’t give a fuck. If that’s the case he shouldn’t record music, he shouldn’t do guest spots, and he shouldn’t damage the resume of one of the greatest careers we’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to.

A friend of mine pointed out to me that he felt even Em knew the time to step aside had come when he released ‘When I’m Gone.” The start of the chorus seems appropriate when viewed through the eyes of someone witnessing his skills and fire diminishing; “when I'm gone just carry on, don't mourn.” I’m not sure if he realizes it, but we can’t carry on until he looks in the mirror and listens to another one of his old lines, this one from "Till I Collapse," “And when your run is over just admit when it's at its end / cuz I'm at the end of my wits with half the shit gets in." My sentiments exactly.