Music Lists

What Are Eminem's Best Albums?

A list of the Rap God's greatest releases

Eminem Governors Ball NYC

Photo by Madison McGaw-BFA (Shutterstock)

When word got out that Dr. Dre had signed a white rapper from Detroit in the late '90s, people were shocked and confused.

After the catastrophe that was Vanilla Ice, white rappers became persona non grata in Hip-Hop. However, Marshall Mathers changed that by becoming one of the most successful emcees of all time.

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FILM

Nobody Asked for Eminem's Surprise Oscars Performance

The rapper performed his hit "Lose Yourself," which won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2003.

Photo by Madison McGaw/BFA/Shutterstock

Considering what many considered to be an overwhelmingly white and male nominee pool, the 92nd Annual Academy Awards ended up being...not that bad?

Korean thriller Parasite made history by becoming the first foreign language film to take home an Oscar for Best Picture, and its director Bong Joon Ho was adorable on numerous occasions. Joaquin Phoenix, after being named Best Lead Actor, continued his streak of spicy acceptance speeches with a condemnation of the animal agriculture industry. Janelle Monáe's opening number saluted snubbed films like Us and Midsommar. Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph were, well, just as funny as you'd expect.

But there was one appearance at the Oscars that had many attendees and viewers perplexed. At the end of a montage celebrating iconic songs made famous by movies, clips of 8 Mile were projected on the screen as the instantly recognizable chug of "Lose Yourself" played along. And then—for reasons widely unbeknownst to the audience—Eminem himself appeared onstage to perform the 2002 No. 1 hit.

While some audience members in the Dolby Theatre happily rapped along, many seemed dumbfounded by Eminem's seemingly random appearance.

"Lose Yourself" became the first rap number to win the Oscar for Best Original Song back in 2003, but Eminem didn't attend that year because he didn't think he had a chance of winning. Although the reason for his delayed appearance is unclear, it seems Eminem just figured he was better late than never: "Look, if you had another shot, another opportunity... Thanks for having me @TheAcademy," he tweeted. "Sorry it took me 18 years to get here."

We're glad Slim Shady finally got his second shot, but why 18 years late? At this point, it feels like a pathetic and haphazard promotion of his eleventh studio album, Music to Be Murdered By, which received backlash for its audacious reference to the bombing at Ariana Grande's 2017 Manchester concert. A clip of old audio also recently resurfaced in which Eminem claimed he'd "side with Chris Brown" on the issue of Brown's infamous assault of Rihanna. Why are we continuing to bait Eminem's constant hunger for relevancy?

These audience reactions say it best:


Eminem 'The Jonathan Ross Show' TV Programme, London, Britain - 15 Nov 2013

Photo by Brian J Ritchie/Hot Sauce/Shutterstock

Eminem's spats with other stars are a big part of Hip-Hop lore, but Nick Cannon is sick of his sh*t.

Since 1999, Marshall Mathers has had 14 extensive feuds with rappers and entertainers and insulted countless other figures in pop culture. A battle rapper at heart, he's an emcee who thrives amid conflict. He once rapped about how conflict "gets his dick harder than arithmetic." His surprise Kamikaze album was, in this sense, a return to form. Released in 2018, Kamikaze revitalized Eminem's waning career after the lukewarm reception of 2017'sRevival, 2010's Recovery, and 2009's Relapse. Fans had long demanded he return to his sh*t-talking ways. So on Kamikaze, his battle rapping roots were on full display as he attacked a multitude of other emcees, the Mumble Rap subgenre, radio host Charlamagne Tha God, and Donald Trump. Since Kamikaze's release, Eminem's beef has begun to stack up in an almost gimmicky way. Still, his latest feud with Nick Cannon feels particularly disquieting, mainly due to Eminem's fervent obsession with Cannon's ex-wife, Mariah Carey.

Fat Joe, Dre - Lord Above (Audio) ft. Eminem & Mary J. Bligewww.youtube.com

During a guest feature on Fat Joe's 2019 single, "Lord Above," Eminem took yet another shot at Nick Cannon and rekindled his claim that he and Mariah Carey had dated. While the two pop culture figures hash it out in what is the most tepid rap feud of the decade, it's worth noting that almost 20 years later, Eminem still wants Carey to be discredited and overall has not changed his chauvinist attitude towards women.

Throughout his entire career, Eminem has always stood by an alleged fling he had with Mariah Carey. His initial mention was a feat of braggadocio, referring to Carey as his "lover" and "wife" in 2002's "Superman." Carey was quick to deny the affair, saying that the pair had merely shared a few phone calls. Since her denial and subsequent diss track, Eminem has made discrediting Mariah Carey a side project, devaluing her at random instances in his music career and reaffirming his side of the narrative, calling Carey a "f*cking liar," among other things. Nick Cannon's marriage to the starlet in 2008 only ramped up Eminem's harassment. "Nick Cannon better back the f*ck up," he raps on "Bagpipes from Baghdad," "I'm not playing, I want her back, you punk." He divulges an everlasting lust for Carey, calling her both a "wh*re" and a "c*nt," while explaining how badly he still wants her. Carey responded with a song called "Obsessed," featuring the line, "Why you so obsessed with me? Boy, I wanna know."

Mariah Carey - Obsessed (Official Video)www.youtube.com

The hit song prompted an even more aggressive response from Eminem, whose track "The Warning" graphically describes sex with Carey. He continues to hurl insults at her for denying their romance, while subsequently threatening to release nude photos and intimate voice mails from the singer to prove his point (the latter of which, he actually did, although Carey denies the voicemails are hers.)

But Eminem's misogyny goes back years before he met Mariah Carey. Christina Aguilera first noted Eminem's violent views towards women in 1999, when Eminem married his longtime girlfriend Kim Mathers. The marriage was done in secret and came after years of Eminem "slinging violent lyrics about her in his earlier work," said Billboard. Aguilera put the rapper on blast, exposing Eminem's secret while warning women about domestic abusers. Eminem has since continued to bite back at Aguilera, most recently in 2018, when during a 10-minute freestyle called "Kick Off," he rapped: "F*ck Christina with a plastic spoon, while I bump some G-funk and blast some Snoop, cause her double-g cups are massive, huge! It's fun for me to just grab a boob, plus my penis got an attitude, my f*ckin Weiner is in a combative mood."

During a 2003 feud with Benzino, the former The Source Editor-and-Chief released "Foolish Pride," an unreleased Eminem song wherein the young emcee can be heard disparaging black women. "Black girls only want your money cause they're dumb chicks," Eminem raps. "Black girls are dumb, and white girls are good chicks." He proceeds to call black girls "wh*res" and "bitches." The blowback was immediate and diffused the beef almost immediately. Eminem apologized and said he made the track about an ex-girlfriend when he was young, "stupid," and angry.

Regardless of the apologies he's continued to shell out, Eminem has dedicated a countless amount of bars to disparaging women. A few years after the "Foolish Pride" blowback, Eminem was caught in a feud with rapper Canibus, and in his subsequent diss track he wrote, "So I stabbed him twice. Kept jabbin', Christ! He won't die! This guy's like a battered wife!"

Eminem - Foolish Pride (Racist song) (READ DESCRIPTION)www.youtube.com

After his initial spat with Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon, Eminem was embroiled in yet another feud with rapper Limp Bizkit, and released a diss track called "Girls," wherein he compared the rapper to a "p*ssy" girl. In November of 2019, an unreleased Eminem feature surfaced, wherein the rapper can be heard siding with Chris Brown over Rihanna following Brown's infamous assault of the pop star. "Let me give my two cents, of course, I support Chris Brown. I'd beat a b*tch down too if she gave my dick an itch now." A representative from Eminem issued a statement saying that he rewrote the lyric in question and that "obviously" he and Rihanna have a great relationship.

Eminem's entire discography is interwoven with lyrics of this nature, and his insensitivity has continuously landed him in hot water over the course of his entire career (the LGBTQ+ community also hates him. He most recently sparked outrage when called Tyler, The Creator a "f*ggot in 2018). So as the temper-tantrum between Nick Cannon and Eminem drags on, it's important to remember that nobody wins, especially not the fans.

With his sprightly choruses and soothing falsetto, Ali Lacey, otherwise known as folk balladeer Novo Amor, presents a rare authenticity in a genre plagued by tacky musical tropes. The singer's refreshing creativity can be accredited to his dense musical pallet. At age eight, Lacey purchased Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP and The Offspring's Conspiracy of One as his first two records. "I was just blasting Eminem all the time," Lacey recalls. "In fact, my neighbor had to sit me down and have a chat with me because they thought it was too vile."

Originally from a small town in Wales, Lacey's taste in music drastically shifted after he spent a summer teaching music amongst the pews of an old chapel in upstate New York. There, Lacey fell in love with a girl and developed a deeper appreciation for music that had "a lot more emotional depth" than what he grew up with. Novo Amor is Portuguese for New Love, and Lacey returned from America ready to sonically embody the nostalgia and heartbreak he experienced that summer.

"Still, this is the first year I've felt like a real artist," said Lacey. While the singer has collaborated on multiple projects, Lacey finally released his debut album, Birthplace, this past October. He described the debut as a representation of his experiences growing up and how they inevitably shaped Novo Amor. "It's celebratory and happy in a way cause I'm moving on from the past," Lacey said. "It's one thing to be an 'artist' in the sense of making art and showing it to people, but I feel a lot more people are listening now than they were a year ago." Yet his growing popularity did take a momentary toll on the soft-spoken singer. "I never thought I'd have stage fright," Lacey said with a laugh, "but before my first show [on this past tour] I drank a bottle of wine and just completely messed it up."

Passionate about environmental preservation, Lacey also didn't initially realize how wasteful the tour life would be. "When I started creating music I didn't expect to have to make so much merch," he said. So the artist decided to join forces with Energy Revolution to help reduce his bus's CO2 emissions. Everyone on his team bought their own renewable water bottle, his merch T-shirts were made with organic cotton and water-based ink, and even the Birthplace vinyls were stored in recycled vinyl pellets. "When artists tour we rarely consider the environmental impact," Lacey said of the effort. "This whole thing is basically giving ourselves a pollution tax which will help fund various projects that support clean renewable energy." As 2019 gets underway, Lacey seemed to shrug at the idea of changing it up in the new year. "Touring [this past year] was great, and the landscape was amazing...and I feel I'm stronger than I was before," he said. "I'm just excited to keep working."


Mackenzie Cummings-Grady is a creative writer who resides in the Brooklyn area. Mackenzie's work has previously appeared in The Boston Globe, Billboard, and Metropolis Magazine. Follow him on Twitter @mjcummingsgrady.


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MUSIC

“Kamikaze” Just Dropped

Eminem's Tenth Full-Length Album

Surprise!

Following up on 2017's Revival, rapper Eminem just dropped Kamikaze, his tenth full-length release - a 13-track, 45-minute collection of raps songs and "skits" sure to give fans the melt-in-your mouth music Eminem (at least sometimes) serves up.

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