For another 25 years, Slim Shady has been trying to piss us off, but Eminem’s loudest alter ego is still partying like it’s 1999, even while audiences wait for Marshall Mathers to grow up. I continued. The title of Em’s new album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), offers hope that he might finally put Slim Shady to rest and move on.
Eminem half-heartedly tries to do that, but it never really happens, and halfway through The Death of Slim Shady becomes a tedium of weak puns, outdated references, and a desperate attempt to get someone to “cancel” it. It turns into a long story.
Here are seven thoughts on Eminem’s The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce).
01. Chicken coupe
The concept for The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) is told in a series of sketches in which Eminem plays Marshall Mathers and Slim Shady, two characters he dislikes to varying degrees. Early on, Slim kidnaps Marshall, and for the first two-thirds of the album, this shady character is filled with dirty jokes about women, disabled people, and disabled people, echoing the kind of jokes Eminem has been prodding since his debut. Trying to stir up the same old controversy. Members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Throughout, Eminem continues to make meta commentary on how the Slim controversy made Marshall rich. “I gave you everything,” he had Slim Shady say in “All You Got (Skit).” And “Guilty Conscience 2” dramatizes the fight between the two, ending with Mathers shooting Shady at close range. This is a coup d’état in the title.
But by this point, Slim Shady’s character was already dominating the album. He’s trying to have his cake and eat it too. Killing off his worst characters only after Slim Shady could profit from them. That might work, but it’s artistic cowardice.
