Is this the end of Slim Shady? Eminem has announced that his next album will be titled The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce) on social media and through an obituary for the character. The rapper, 51, whose real name is Marshall Mathers, has been teasing the new record for quite a while now, and it now has a release date! While there are still details to come about the forthcoming album, which will be Eminem’s 12th, it’s certainly an exciting time for the Stans. While many will undoubtedly be sad to see Slim Shady go, it’s still exciting to see what Marshall has in store for the upcoming album!
Eminem revealed that he’d drop the album on July 12, 2024 in a post on X on July 1. The announcement was accompanied by a video of a woman giving birth on a stormy night, presumably to Slim Shady. Em’s longtime producer Dr. Dre first teased that the rapper was planning on putting out a new album in 2024 during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live in March 2024. Prior to announcing the drop date, Slim released a teaser clip where he said the album would drop in Summer 2024.
So far only two singles have been released from the record. Eminem dropped “Houdini” at the end of May, and it harkened back to his Eminem Show era. He dropped the second single “Tobey,” which features Big Sean and Babytron. The track features references to Tobey Maguire’s portrayal of Spider-Man. Prior to the singles being released, fans did speculate that Eminem was teasing a song called “Will Never Forget,” when a fake obituary for Slim Shady ran in his local newspaper Detroit Free Press. No other details have been announced, but it also seems likely that Eminem’s longtime collaborator Dr. Dre will be handling some production on the record.
Other than the teaser clip, Eminem has kept most details about the record under wraps, but he did take out the aforementioned fake obituary in his local paper. The piece in part teases out how Slim Shady met his untimely end. “Ultimately, the very things that seemed to be the tools he used became calling cards that defined an existence that could only come to a sudden and horrific end. His complex and tortured existence has come to a close, and the legacy he leaves behind is no closer to resolution than the manner in which this character departed this world. May he truly find the peace in an afterlife that he could not find on Earth,” it reads, via Billboard.
For those who may not be aware, Slim Shady is one of Eminem’s alter-egos, which he’s referenced in tons of songs, including hits like “My Name Is” and “The Real Slim Shady.” He first introduced the character on the Slim Shady EP, and the character has made countless appearances in his work over the years. Some of the trademarks of Slim Shady include violent and nihilistic lyrics with a comedic twist.
Marshall Bruce Mathers III — his birth name — is known to not be afraid to fire back at other artists, and he did just that in this 12th album. He named dropped Diddy and mentioned his recent charges on sexual assault, rape, and sex trafficking. The 8 Mile star raps in “Fuel”, “I’m like a R-A-P-E-R / Got so many S-As, S-As/Wait he didn’t just spell the word ‘rapper’ and leave out a P, did he?.” Slim Shady did not stop there, and threw shade to a couple of artists in his song “Antichrist”, beginning with a reference to Kanye’s scandal with Taylor Swift. “Dang, Dre, look at what you made me do / Maybe you the one they should blame/Say they wish I wasn’t so angry (yeah) / They wanna see me goin’ off the deep end like Ye, ayy (nah) / Rather see me do like Kim Kardashian they say (yeah), yeah / And find a way to get rid of all of this rage,” he sang. In that same song he continued dissing, ” ‘Cause I can spit a bar that is a/ Cross between Nas and GZA, Biggie Smalls, and RZA/ So hard, Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj’ll scissor (Cut it out).”