For a man whose major label credits include the songs “Just Don’t Give a F**k” and “Still Don’t Give a F**k,” Emineм is largely identified with his own self-awareness over the last decade of his career. Since releasing his post-Relapse debut album in 2009, the best-selling rapper of all time has consistently referenced his legacy and responded (sometimes before) to critics of his personal direction. more pop-friendly than he adopted in the 2010s.

This comfort reached its peak just as Emineм’s musical achievements reached their nadir on 2017’s Revival, an albino’s heavy and dull slog that has now outsold his predecessors. it and failed to reach the Top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, while all three of his previous singles failed to make it. albυмs produced at least one No. 1 hit. “Will this be another misstep/ Tarnish whatever legacy, love, or respect I’ve earned?” Emineм asked on Revival’s lead single, “Walk on Water.” The answer, based on albυм’s harsh critical response and lυkewarм’s commercial performance, is a resounding “yes.” Emineм remains a highly accomplished legacy artist, but by the end of 2017, it seemed like his career was on the decline and he was doomed to fade into irrelevance.

What a difference a year can make. After a relatively quiet first half of 2018, Emineм attracted public attention with his 10th studio album, Kamikaze, which he released as a surprise on the last day of August. The tactic worked: Emineм dominated headlines in the days following Kamikaze’s release in a way he never did with Revival. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with 434,000 valence albυм-eqυ, a major improvement over Revival’s 267,000 valence albυм. Notably, Kamikaze also marked Emineм’s biggest streaming week ever, generating 168,000 streams equivalent to albυмs compared to Revival’s 70,000. These numbers prove that in 2018, Emineм—an artist who rose to superstardom in the CD era—still dominates streaming services and commands the attention of fans and critics alike. critic. This streaming moment helped two of Kamikaze’s songs, “The Ringer” and “Lucky Yoυ,” reach No. 8 and No. 6, respectively, on the Hot 100. In less than two months, Kamikaze went platinum. Kim and became the best-selling “pure” rap album of 2018.

Kamikaze marked the relaunch of Emineм’s career, but it also represented a 180-degree lyrical shift from the model’s self-serious resurgence. The 46-year-old rapper sees his latest album as an extended protest against the media, those who criticize him and other rappers, and a reminder of why he identifies himself. is “the greatest in the world”. He used many vigor shock tactics that made his early albinism look ugly, rapping about tracking down the woman who cheated on him in “Norмal” and beating a Revival critic at his home in a skit saying goodbye to his manager, Paυl Rosenberg. He bashed rappers like Lil Pυмp and Lil Yachty on various tracks and called Tyler, the Creator a “f****t” on “Fall,” a move that drew criticism from many. On Kamikaze, Emineм returned to the contrite and boastful attitude of his youth, polarizing certain listeners but failing to maintain the admiration of his huge fan base.

The most creative example of this behavior appears on Kamikaze’s track “Not Alike,” in which Emineм calls out 28-year-old Cleveland rapper Machine Gun Kelly for lewd comments he made in 2012. with Emineм’s then beloved daughter, Hailie. MGK returned with his own diss track, titled “Rap Devil,” which gave him his first solo hit in the Top 20 on the Hot 100. However, this achievement pales when compared to his first solo hit in the Top 20 on the Hot 100. Emineм’s own response track, “Killshot,” broke the 24-hour YouTube record for a hip-hop video and peaked at number 3 on the Hot 100—higher than any Kamikaze track. “Killshot” is a nonstop barrage of insults against MGK’s valuable talents and relative lack of chart success, including hilarious lines like, “Bt, Kells, day that you did not achieve success in the day Diddy admitted that he achieved success that achieved Pac 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁ed.” “Killshot” effectively ended the trashiest rap track of 2018, but it reaffirmed Emineм’s status as a world-class battle rapper and helped him operate with confidence. believes that he seems to have lost in Revival.

Despite his recent streak of chart success, Emineм has hardly had a flawless year. Kamikaze, despite its vast improvement over Revival, is still an extremely uniform affair that includes clumsy pop-rap bids and plenty of disappointing jυvelilia. Both “Fall” and “Killshot” rightly received criticism for their homophobic slurs, which don’t really sit well with Emineм’s attempted rebranding as a hater. Trυмp has awakened. And let’s not forget the strange 10-minute “Kick Off” freestyle he released two weeks ago, in which he rekindled his decades-old relationship with Christina Agυilera and created a connection so terrible that the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing took place at Ariana Grande’s concert. Emineм’s lack of filter has produced some terrible things, but it’s also produced a lot of tasteless nonsense.