Album Review: Kamikaze by Eminem
Album Review: Kamikaze by Eminem
Eminem suprise released his tenth album with a vengeance. With his back against the wall, the Rap God goes to war.
Taken from Phil’s defunct blog, The Wax Report, an extensive review of the most important albums, covering everything from production to lyricism and overall cohesiveness.
No one was a fan of Revival, not a single person. This consensus is evident from prominent media outlets like Rolling Stone, Allmusic, Pitchfork, and even Eminem himself. I only listened to “Walk On Water,” which was so underwhelming that I decided to trust the general opinion and avoid the rest of the album. I was too afraid that someone would have his monument with his behind, and so on and so forth. But the sight of a Slim Shady who dismantles himself hurts.
Eminem continues to have a soft spot for Revival, and his new album’s lyrics show he hasn’t strayed from this sentiment at all. Of course, Eminem does not crawl to crosses as if he were someone, and that would also look strange. The man takes seriously his claim to be the best rapper in the world. Logically, he can not lower his head in front of anyone and ask for absolution if, according to his claim, he is busy looking down on everyone else.
Marshall Mathers is up there in an ungrateful position; he knows that very well himself. It complains heavily downward without many taking one for an annoying recalcitrant pensioner who has seen his best days. In addition, the names he drags into the dirt inevitably always have the underdog bonus on their side. Someone who is not Eminem will inevitably benefit from having beef with the most famous rapper in the world (“You mention me/Millions of views/Attention in news/I mention you/Lose-lose for me/Win-win for you”).
It is undeniable that he seems a little out of time with his way of making music, in which the beauty of the rhyme and the power of the rapped word always count in the first to tenth place, seems a little out of time: Especially Revival probably sounded quite terrible, with too much focus on double-time technique. His approach has never been holistic. First, there always comes the part, then nothing for a long time, and then the beat, which has not changed.
The fact that the reconquest of lost honor still succeeds on Kamikaze is due, on the one hand, to the fact that Eminem has accepted and understood the criticism, even if he does not admit it, of course. On the other hand, the fact that with his creative grip on the shit house to date, honor was lost, which makes Kamikaze a dramatic affair from the outset. Without the Revival disaster, Kamikaze would not be conceivable in this form. For us as listeners, this starting position is cool: Eminem goes to war with his back to the wall. That’s how we want him.
The fact that there is a lot at stake for him because he has a lot to lose can be felt and heard on every track. His contempt for the majority of rap mainstream, presented in many ways, makes up the majority of the album. What the kids celebrate nowadays often hurts them, for reasons that can be found mainly in relation to Trap or timeless, regardless of subgenres: A lack of love for the word and poetry, a lack of originality (“Do you have any idea how much I hate this choppy flow/Everyone copies though/Probably no”), sometimes simply a lack of talent in rap, which keeps Eminem awake at night. “So finger-bang, chicken wang, MGK, Iggy ‘zae,” you guess who or what is meant in particular, and indeed, “Lil Pump, Lil Xan imitate Lil Wayne.”
Of course, Eminem disses Lil Pump, Lil Xan, ‘Cloud Rap’ and ‘Mumble Rap’ as such; this is, firstly, a revenge story. Secondly, apples are compared with pears. But it’s also both fruit. It is legitimate to point out that Eminem does not like the bulb. Or that a (blacked up by me here) Lil Pump, the undisputed entertainment value of his music on the outside, is a rather stupid idiot who probably fails to form a whole sentence and certainly fails to write a whole part that deserves this name. The disses of rappers like Eminem or Joyner Lucas against such characters is not delegitimized by the fact that they can rap a hundred times better, but rather, on the contrary, even if they look like smart asses.
However, the funny colorful trap rabies get away comparatively lightly. The path of the just is lined with the tweets of self-proclaimed experts and the tyranny of the fools, and with Grimm, Eminem has punished them all on “kamikaze.” How excessively the months after the release of Revival must have puked him, the unison narrative of the aging legend on the descending branch can be noticed only by the fact that everyone here really gets their pack, who has been looking up lately. Even Vince Staples, who should also be one of the good guys by Eminem’s standards, mentions disrespectfully that he has shambled on Twitter against the Rap God and its BET freestyle and now has to pay for it. Likewise, Tyler The Creator, who always paid respect to Eminem and described him as a great influence, gets cringe lines on his head because he peed on the leg of the false hero of his youth via WWW. At the wrong time, shortly after the release of the much-criticized “Walk On Water,” when the desire for murder probably already began to manifest itself in Eminem.
He already recommends Joe Budden more harshly that he should be silent in the future on topics that do not concern him (“Somebody tell Budden before I snap, he better fasten it/Or have his body bag get zipped/The closest thing he’s had a hit is smackin’ bitches”). The crying Canadian is subtly and emphatically referred to his place without naming. Machine Gun Kelly gets a whole paragraph, including a beat switch. One of the many moments on the album in which it becomes clear that Eminem is passionate about something. In this case, the deeply felt aversion to Kelly as a person and musician, going back to a tweet of Kelly from 2012, in which he evaluated the attractiveness of Eminem’s daughter (stupid idea).
As one of the few who find mercy before his verdict, the previously mentioned weapon brother gets a feature against the dull Joyner Lucas. He is representative of a corrected policy about guest contributions. On Revival, they ranged from functional but boring (Beyoncé, Skylar Grey) to nice meant but did not need a feature (P!nk) to gross mischief (Ed Sheeran, X Ambassadors). On Kamikaze, on the other hand, there are two guest rappers (Joyner Lucas, Royce da 5’9’’) and a guest singer (Jesse Reyez) who fit Eminem but, above all, can also survive next to him. And then the two executive producers, Em and Dre, unexpectedly shake the ace of Justin Vernon out of the sleeve, who in “Fall” succeeds in creating a mood that has not yet been heard in an Eminem track, and at the same time to look like he has been singing the hooks to him for 20 years. Keyword criticism is heard, understood, and implemented.
This keyword characterizes two other points that ensure that Kamikaze does not need to be ashamed in the beloved company of albums such as The Marshall Mathers LP part one and two or The Eminem Show, although, of course, it is something completely different. On the one hand, Eminem finally carefully modernized his sound to the present time. If you are puzzled in vain with Revival, which film and in which century Eminem has now stuck strictly, Kamikaze beats remain in the ear that sounds fresh without hindering the zeitgeist.
Instrumentals such as “Normal” or “Fall” do not have to hide from the status quo in the basement. Here and there, Eminem and the giant Satan Trap met halfway in the middle and tested what you can do together regarding sound technology. Sometimes more (“Lucky You”), sometimes less (“Greatest”). The Lean Lucifer must also have whispered to Marshall a few rhyme patterns and flows that sound suspiciously like the present but never sound like relevance, like desperate heating, but simply like respect for culture and its current form. Maybe the physical also clicked on him, and he did not attach any importance to sounding like the day before yesterday.
Point two promotes Kamikaze of Marshall Mathers’ private campaign against the rest of the world to the rank of a full-fledged Eminem album. Four tracks on the album, “Normal,” “Stepping Stone,” “Good Guy,” and “Nice Guy,” do not deal with the quarrels about Revival and the scene as such. Or with people who get on Eminem’s nerves. The latter is false because nothing and no one, certainly not pipes like Joe Burden or Charlamagne tha God, rob Marshall Mathers of the last remnant of nerve as femininity. For almost a quarter of a century, he has now been in crisis because of women, and an end is not foreseeable.
For 20 years, we have been hearing him on his records wrestling with this destructive mixture of anger, self-hatred, and powerlessness, with the “I love you for the things I hate about you,” and she will most likely accompany him and us when he is about 60. He still achieves an emotional intensity and depth in describing this indisputable permanent state that very few rappers see up close. It’s everything but “normal.” “I love you, but I hope you fuckin’ die though,” summarizes the woman in music succinctly from Eminem’s point of view.
The emotional highlight of Kamikaze is “Stepping Stone”: A song for the old comrades of D12, who can now at most still be friends because, with Proof, the band’s soul died at the time, as Eminem makes unmistakably clear. He doesn’t need to say all the stupid things you said to each other because you were disappointed, all the false expectations of each other, and he doesn’t need to say all that individually. You can hear it. We had a dream. It didn’t work. We are now out of old age. “My Band” is freaking over.
Kamikaze is a demonstration of power that was not expected from this position. Eminem keeps the rest of the game at a distance. As far as his rap technique is concerned, anyway, that is well-known, and you don’t need to discuss it anymore. Anyone who claims otherwise does not know what they are talking about. The album shows him in irascible top form and simultaneously shows artistic progress. I still don’t know someone who can do what Eminem does, just like Eminem does. In Kamikaze mode, he once again legitimizes himself and his claim to the eternal title of the Greatest.
The round goes to him.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “The Ringer,” “Lucky You,” “Not Alike”