Slim is coming back for the last time.
Eminem is gearing up for the release of his 12th solo studio album The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), which will be the final chapter in his alter ego’s storyline. The catch is, like the title suggests, Slim Shady is dead. The teaser that announced the album was structured like an old procedural show, in which witnesses reflect on what went wrong. Since Em announced the album, we have seen no promo at all except today, when Em posted an obituary in the Detroit newspaper.
“Slim Shady made lasting impressions” read the Detroit Free Press headline. The piece treats Slim like a real person, despite the comically exaggerated photo of him wearing a hockey mask above the headline. It does, however, address some of the satirical elements that Eminem has played with whenever he used the Shady moniker. “[His] audience was soon exposed to the extreme darkness of the muse/rapper. As he led millions of music fans down a road glorified a demonstrably nihilistic worldview.”
The obituary notes that Slim Shady’s path was always going to come to a tragic 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 the character departed this world. May he truly find the peace in an afterlife that he could not find on Earth.”
During a 1999 interview with Video Music Box, the Detroit legend revealed that Slim Shady allowed him to free up his creative impulses without having to worry about whether they went too far. “Everybody’s got two sides to them. Slim Shady’s just an angry side for me to vent. Eminem is just me. When I sit down with a pen, sometimes I write Eminem rhymes, sometimes I write Slim Shady rhymes. It depends on what type of mood I’m in that day.” Two and a half decades later, it seems like Em is finally ready to let go of the Slim Shady safety net. Check out the newspaper below:
The Detroit Free Press Newspaper appears to have Slim Shady’s obituary in it 😳 pic.twitter.com/pVfRidL8b5
— My Mixtapez (@mymixtapez) May 13, 2024
