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Eminem · S2 E3
The Slim Shady EP
A new voice emerges. Violent, funny, unhinged. Everything Marshall couldn't say as himself
Early 1997. Marshall walks into the Bass Brothers' basement studio in Ferndale, opens his mouth, and the voice that comes out is not the one that made Infinite.
Eminem, "Role Model" (official music video, 1999). Slim Shady at his most unhinged. Marshall runs through a series of increasingly outrageous scenarios, mocking the idea that a rapper should be anyone's moral compass. This is exactly what the Slim Shady EP unleashed: a character with zero guardrails.
Role Model
The Bass Brothers built the beat around a lurching, off-kilter piano loop that sounds like a carnival ride breaking down. That instability is the point. Slim Shady does not rap on normal beats because Slim Shady is not a normal rapper. Listen for the way Eminem shifts between three different vocal registers in a single verse: a deadpan monotone, a manic shout, and a mocking sing-song.
TAP TO REVEAL: Where was Slim Shady literally born?
“Why try to be the next Nas when I could never be Nas? Once I stopped caring about what people thought, once I stopped trying to be lyrical and just said whatever came to my mind, that's when it clicked.”
— Eminem, Source Magazine, 1999
The Slim Shady EP
Just Don't Give a Fuck
From The Slim Shady LP (1999), originally recorded for the EP in 1997. This is the first Slim Shady track most people ever heard. Over a bass-heavy beat with a Labi Siffre sample, Eminem announces his new persona with a simple thesis: he has nothing to lose, so he has nothing to fear.
Just Don't Give a Fuck, Eminem (1999)
Read the lyrics while you listen. The first Slim Shady track most people ever heard. Nothing to lose, so nothing to fear.
What was on the cover of the Slim Shady EP that became Slim Shady's visual signature?
The EP is making noise, but noise does not pay rent. In late 1997, Marshall scrapes together enough money to fly to Los Angeles for a freestyle competition called the Rap Olympics. He does not win, but someone in the building picks up a copy of his tape.
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