He’s baaaackk!! Slim Shady a.k.a. Marshall Mathers a.k.a. Eminem dropped a surprise album last night, entitled Kamikaze. The album, executive produced by Dr. Dre, finds Eminem in rare form and that’s saying a lot for him. He slams everyone from Donald Trump to Charlamagne and Harvey Weinstein. His flows are tight as ever and he addresses naysayers who claim his record sales are down (“So you sold 10 million albums, eh? But you put out 10 million albums”). Let’s not discredit the fact that Kamikaze is his 10th solo studio album (if you don’t count his releases before 1999). Prior to its release, he has already sold over 100 million albums worldwide (not counting singles sales). 

This is the Eminem we’ve been missing; taking heads off and taking names. 2017’s Revival was nothing to sneeze at. He even pokes fun of it on “Greatest”, with a Kendrick Lamar “Humble” esque yell,” Revival didn’t go viral”.  On “Lucky You”, featuring Joyner Lucas, he proclaims he’s back on his bull after seemingly falling off. He tries his hand at some of the recently trendy sounds of rap and sounds better than the Lil Yachtys of the world who specialize in it on the comical ode to trap music, “Not Alike”.

Of course, it wouldn’t be an Eminem album without some crazy, quirky relationship stories (“Normal”, “Good Guy” and “Nice Guy”) and hilarious skits (“Paul” and “Em Calls Paul” ). Plus, he throws in the title track for Marvel’s highly anticipated Venom to close out the album just for kicks. Much like Janet Jackson with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and Justin Timberlake with Timbaland, the Eminem and Dr. Dre brand is still untouchable. Dr. Dre’s tight laced production seems to fuel some intense inspiration for Eminem’s rhymes. 

He’s not afraid to be vulnerable on songs like the deeply introspective “Stepping Stone”. Eminem names those who have passed on (including his D12 member Proof) and the demons he stills wrestles with as a result of it. He samples LL Cool J’s “Bad” on the occasionally grotesque and consistently brilliant title track, “Kamikaze”. Although he attacks the integrity of the Grammy nomination committee on “Fall”, something tells me he’ll be adding to his 15 Grammy Award tally next year. Kamikaze proves that nearly 20 years after his breakthrough The Slim Shady LP, there’s still only one real Slim Shady. 

Kamikaze is available now on all digital outlets.