In a bold move, Eminem stuns the music industry with the surprise release of his 10th studio album, Kamikaze. Yes, You heard it right. Eminem releases a full-length album, without warning or any sort of promotion. And he proves yet again that he remains at the top of the hip-hop/rap food chain. Read ahead for all the details.
August 31 saw many music releases. From Troye Sivan’s first album in three years (Bloom) to newcomer Tash Sultana’s debut album (Flow State). Both albums were promoted extensively and received their fair amount of hype. It was, however, Eminem’s surprise album, (that literally came out of nowhere) that stole the show. Kamikaze, was an instant smash hit, debuting at no less than the number one spot on the Billboard 200 charts. The album is raking in some solid numbers… and well, drama. Let’s talk about all the noise surrounding Kamikaze.
Kamikaze’s Surprise Release
No one saw it coming, but you can’t deny it now makes sense. Kamikaze’s predecessor, Revival was released only December of last year. And even though it was relatively a commercial hit, – even debuting at number one – it was still considered a critical and commercial disappointment as per Eminem’s standards.
The 45-year-old rapper received lukewarm reception off of Revival. Eminem’s critics and competitors went as far as to imply that the rapper should start hanging his metaphoric spurs. And with new and younger talent – like his rival Machine Gun Kelly – dominating the rap scene, the pressure on Eminem is only intensifying.
However, Eminem isn’t going down not swinging. For any other artist, it would be suicide mission. But not for Eminem. Without riding on any promotional hype train, he releases a full-length studio album without telling a single soul. And it worked. The record scored 434,000 equivalent album units in the week ending September 6. And of that amount, 252,000 were from traditional album sales.
This breaks Eminem’s and any other rapper’s record. His detractors, for the lack of a better phrase, can shut up. Kamikaze marks the rapper’s ninth chart-topping album in the United States. And he’s been doing so since 2000. If that’s not a way to show up your critics, then we don’t know what is.
Ninth Number 1 Album
Eminem holds an impressive record that spans genres in the music industry. Kamikaze is his ninth number 1 album. Which means that all of his album releases since 2000 are all number-ones. Not only that, his only release that failed to hit the spot was Slim Shady (1999). And guess what? It landed on number 2. He is now one of the top 5 leaders in the chart’s history, along with The Rolling Stones and Garth Brooks. If Eminem continues on with the tradition, he can even beat The Beatles and Barbara Streisand off their places.
Here are the other records Eminem’s Kamikaze broke:
Ninth Number 1 Debut
Two Number 1 Albums In Less Than A Year
Eminem’s Top Streaming Week
Fourth-Largest Numbered Week For An Album in 2018
Third in Top Sales Week For An Album in 2019
Reasons For Release, Diss Tracks, Feuds, And Message To Critics
For the first time since the surorise release of Kamikaze, Eminem talks about the reason why he made the album, its origins, the beating he experienced from his critics, and his feud with his rap rivals. Shady sat for an interview with SiriusXM Shade 45’s Sway Calloway on Tuesday, September 11th to have a candid talk about Kamikaze.
On why he decided to drop the album without notice, Eminem says, “I felt like the way the climate is right now if you gave people enough time [to say]…’man, he’d better have a song like this or I ain’t fucking with it. If you don’t have a song like this I aint fucking with it. He better not be rapping like this. He better not be rapping about this, or I’m not going to fuck with it.’”
Creating and releasing the album in complete darkness was, “the best thing to do, just because it doesn’t give people enough time to… when the Revival tracklist came down the pipe, it was like overwhelming ‘this shit is going to be trash’. Nobody really wanted to be wrong about it. A lot of people had already formed their opinions.”
Slim Shady also talked about the critical backlash he went through after the release of Revival. “I remember a time in hip-hop when you had to be so different from the next people, or you were trash,” he expressed. “There’s a shift somewhere that happened where, if it doesn’t sound like everything else, then it’s trash automatically.”
Beef with Machine Gun Kelly
In rap, feuds and rivalries make for epic diss tracks. And what is hip-hop without any drama? Eminem talks about his well-publicized beef with Machine Gun Kelly. His song, “Not Alike” seemingly points towards Machine, and warranted a provocative diss track from the latter called, ” “Rap Devil.”
Regarding the issue, Eminem has something to say. “You know you go down a fucking wormhole of YouTube and whatever, right?” Eminem expressed. “So I see, ‘Machine Gun Kelly talks about Eminem’s daughter’ or whatever, right? So I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’ I click on it. Then he starts doing a press run, basically, about Hailie. I’m like, ‘What the fuck? Yo, my man better chill.’
“So, that’s not why I dissed him. The reason I dissed him is actually a lot more petty than that. Now I’m in this fuckin’ weird thing, because I’m like, ‘I’ve gotta answer this motherfucker.’”
Well, having big egos seems to be a requirement for successful rappers. Who’s to know how long this feud will go on? Meanwhile, we can expect incendiary tracks from it.
Joe Budden Talk-Back
After the release of Revival last year, one criticism Eminem received was from his SH running mate Joe Budden. As to why Budden would choose to criticize him so, he has no idea. But Eminem certainly expressed his feelings, especially when he’s helped Joe Budden career back in the day.
“Me and Joe Budden aren’t, you know, we’re not friends like that. We didn’t go to the same fucking high school. You know what I’m saying? I get that part,” Em explains. “But when I’m out here, flying around to different places and doing interviews and trying to use my platform to pump up Slaughterhouse every chance I get, and you’re using your platform to try to trash me.”
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