Eminem Teases New Album ‘The Death of Slim Shady’ with Provocative Single ‘Houdini’

There's a lot of "older" rappers that aren't really with the times and you'll see them releasing music that is explicitly complaining about "cancel culture," even though they're not victims of it and are still very successful. I used to be a pretty big Run the Jewels/Killer Mike fan, but the track "Talk'n That Shit!" from his 2023 album, Michael, is just generically mean and kinda hateful, with lyrics like

***** talk to me about that woke-ass shit (yeah)

Same ***** walkin' on some broke-ass shit

You see, your words ain't worth no money, I ain't spoke back, bitch

All of you ***** hang together on some Brokeback shit

I'll let you fill in the blanks or look up the lyrics yourself, because I'm not looking to catch a ban from posting rap lyrics, but needless to say it's just "fuck you woke people, you're all gay." Like, there's very little artistic merit to a song like that.

Dude used to write music that punched up, but then he went on NRA TV and talked about how he would kick his kids out of the house if they ever protested in favor of gun control legislation (he's a huge 2nd Amendment advocate) and now he's suddenly "anti-woke" because a bunch of people on Twitter told him he was out of touch and closed-minded and that if he really wanted to deliver this particular message, he probably could have selected a platform less comically heinous than one almost exclusively watched by alt-right lunatics. So he decided to prove them wrong by being even more out of touch and closed-minded.

I think Eminem has always put down those vibes ... that's not particularly new.

There's a different "tone" to the music in general, it's a bit more "playful" and a bit less "fuckkkk, you" (Yah Yah, Survival) and/or "sad" (Mockingbird).

It's different but it's kinda fun.