A surprise Kamikaze for fans, critics and mumble rappers

Eminem released the album, as the title suggests, without warning or promotion of any sort as opposed to Revival which was heavily marketed before its release in December 2017. Kamikaze was released on the final day of August this year, marking his shortest recording period in between albums. Billboard likened the album’s commercial success to Beyoncé’s 2013 self-titled studio album, also released without pre-announcement to critical acclaim. The comparison becomes unfounded given Eminem’s track record of success, with his last 8 studio albums (out of 10) topping the US and UK charts in addition to several other countries.

At 45 minutes and 49 seconds, Kamikaze is Eminem’s second shortest album in duration, only about 7 minutes longer than his debut album Infinite back in 1996. Unlike the 2017 predecessor Revival which featured prominent modern artists (Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran, Alicia Keys, Kehlani, P!nk), Kamikaze featured only two rappers and Jessie Reyez (credited for writing Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa’s ‘One Kiss’) in a total of 13 tracks.

The album’s core theme is to diss present generation of mumble rappers as Eminem maintains his superiority on his intensity, speed and rhyming while delivering his tune. Current U.S. President Donald Trump gets a mention in the opening track ‘The Ringer’, whom he also lashed on in a freestyle rap during the 2017 BET Hip Hop Awards. ‘The Greatest’ and ‘Lucky You’ heavily disses rappers including Joe Budden, Tyler the Creator, Ja Rule, Drake and even South African band Die Antwoord. He denotes the phrase “mumble rap” for rappers who showed little flair in rap vocabulary and intensity, in contrast with his powerful vocal delivery. During an early September interview with Sway Calloway about his latest album, he admits dissing them for variety of reasons – mostly on below-par rappers who have the cheek to criticise his works and re-ignition of several past feuds.

Eminem certainly doesn’t need introduction on his rapping tempo. If you thought his “supersonic speed” section in ‘Rap God’ was insane with a record of 101 words in 16.45 seconds, Eminem seemingly broke his own record during his mesmerising second verse in ‘Lucky You’ where within a 16-second part he managed to rap about 110 words. In that track he collaborated with Joyner Lucas, an underrated Massachusetts rapper who had a gripping rap panache of his own. Joyner concurred with Eminem’s notion of “lesser rappers getting the attention” by alluding “all my life, I want a Grammy / but I’ll probably never get it” in his lines. A repentant Eminem admits “selling his soul to win some Grammys in his past” in the subsequent verse. Eminem also reunited with fellow Bad Meets Evil partner Royce da 5’9” (famed for ‘Fast Lane’ and ‘Lighters’ with Bruno Mars) in the track ‘Not Alike’, dissing rapper Machine Gun Kelly (MGK) who last year shot to fame with his single ‘Bad Things’ with Camila Cabello.

As the album goes on, listeners may find the tone and rhythm becoming a tad repetitive while the dissing theme fades. The title track ‘Kamikaze’ and ‘Fall’ focuses more on Eminem’s frustration at his last album, Revival receiving poor reviews and critics. The penultimate tracks ‘Nice Guy’ and ‘Good Guy’ featuring up-and-coming singer Jessie Reyez shifts to themes about trying to be the nice guy in baffling relationships. The final track ‘Venom’ is a motion picture soundtrack from the freshly released Tom Hardy movie, which Eminem references heavily.

The diss tracks certainly collected attentions of the name-dropped artists, most notably MGK who tweeted about Eminem’s daughter Hailie “being hot” back in 2012 (another reason to not fuck with Dad). MGK is the only artist who responded with a full track ‘Rap Devil’ alluding to Eminem’s ‘Rap God’. Eminem recorded his comeback ‘Killshot’ within two weeks but was reluctant to ‘popularise’ MGK with the response track, as quoted in the same Sway interview. As of this writing, the ‘Killshot’ audio track has amassed 177 million views on YouTube, almost 24 million more than MGK’s ‘Rap Devil’ music video released in the same period. Like most of his previous albums, Kamikaze does not shy away from controversies regarding his alleged homophobic lyrics. He did apologise for “going too far” but in truth this is nothing new regarding his style for die-hard fans.

In a nutshell, Kamikaze may not be his best work to date, but at 46, Eminem shows no signs of slowing down and is still at the top of his game. If he keeps producing records while casting other artists in the limelight, none of us will be able to keep him away from the music spotlight. In early September BBC news suggested the “greatest” rapper should consider quitting while still in his prime. Until then, guess who’s back, back again?

-3.5 stars