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The answer for Em, if there is one, is to *actually* pull a 4:44, and make an album that doesn’t have any ambitions of greatness and simply aims to be the best it can be and the most pure version of the artist.
Imagine Eminem sitting down with (ugh) Dre ... and just spitting some very human, autobiographical bars at a leisurely pace over some classy beats. Dre sampling Jackson 5, and Em talking about what he’s learned over the years. Not desperately thumping his chest and screaming “IMATTERIMATTERIMATTERSTANSTANSTAN!”
To me, that’s what a course correction would look like. And then, *never releasing an album again* and only turning up on the occasional guest verse. Essentially retiring before he erases any and all impact his music ever had.
At this point, he’s been TERRIBLE for like FIVE TIMES as long as he was ever even remotely interesting. When was he interesting? 1999-2003 or thereabouts. Like, Slim Shady LP is probably a classic for hip-hop no matter how you slice it, Marshal Mathers LP is the “Vs.” of rap records, even though it’s always been a shit ass album. The Eminem Show has some catchy singles, and that album he did with D12 felt kind of dangerous and exciting at the time. 8 Mile might be the Purple Rain of rap, but the soundtrack is *not the Purple Rain of anything* so that’s where I’m cutting t off.
So that’s like 3.5 or so years of goodness? That was like 16 years ago.
Dude needs to just chill, take his money, and make sure his daughter doesn’t end up in a trailer park.
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