On August 31st, Eminem dropped a surprise album titled Kamikaze. Listening to the release was also a surprise. The 13-song worth collection features several guests including Royce Da 5’9, Joyner Lucas, Jessie Reyez and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon while Eminem’s longtime manager Paul Rosenberg also made an appearance in two skits.
On one of those skits, Rosenberg can be heard saying that Eminem just can’t reply to everyone who disliked his last record, 2017’s Revival. It turns out; he can. Simply put, Kamikaze is the album with whom Em punches back.
Recent years have not been easy for Eminem. Numerous critics were coming after him, bashing his latest releases and saying that it’s his time to retire. Eminem surprisingly remained silent and took notes before finally saying everything he has to say with Kamikaze. From the title to the tracks, the whole album is about a crash course in rapping and attack on all of those who thought Eminem faded from the rap scene in the past few years.
The album opens up with “The Ringer,” in which he drops quite a few names and mocks the current state of rap including the current culture of mumble rapping and randomly throwing words that rhyme onto a beat.
On song called “Fall,” he admits last year wasn’t one of his best, while on track called “Lucky You”, which features Joyner Lucas, he admits that he was hurt with negative reactions on Revival: “I took an L when I dropped my last album/ It hurt me like hell but I’m back on these rappers.” Eminem delivered some of his best rhymes on this one, but truth be told, Joyner Lucas brought his A-game as well. On the title track “Kamikaze,” Em brought the old Slim Shady who is just having fun while displaying incredible wordplay and lyricism.
This release isn’t all about anger since Em is also true with other emotions and delivers an apology to his rap group D12 in the song “Stepping Stone.”
Don’t get us wrong. This isn’t a perfect album since there are few songs that just feel like they don’t belong here, including “Normal” and “Nice Guy.” They are not extremely bad but are not on par with the rest of the album. Also, you get the feeling that Eminem maybe tried too much to respond to all of his critics, that he got a bit lost in the process.
That being said, Kamikaze is a badly needed refreshment in today’s hip-hop, and it hints that the real Slim Shady just stood up.
Rating: ★ ★ ★★ ☆
