Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Eminem · S2 E6
My Name Is
Bleached hair, a chainsaw, and the most outrageous debut single rap has ever seen
January 1999. MTV puts a bleached-blond man in a straitjacket on heavy rotation, and 280 million Americans hear the same four words at once: "Hi, my name is."
Eminem, "My Name Is" (official music video, 1999). The video that detonated a career. Eminem impersonates Bill Clinton, Marilyn Manson, and a math teacher, all in the span of four minutes. He chainsaws a woman on a couch. He runs through a school in a fat suit. This is the moment Slim Shady walks into every living room in America without knocking.
My Name Is
Dr. Dre builds the beat around a sped-up sample from Labi Siffre's "I Got the..." and layers a bouncing, cartoonish melody underneath that sounds like a children's show gone wrong. The production tells you to laugh while the lyrics dare you to be offended. Eminem recorded dozens of extra verses, swapping punchlines until every single bar landed. His voice shifts between a nasal whine and a shout, often mid-sentence. That vocal instability is Slim Shady's signature.
TAP TO REVEAL: Why did Eminem have to rewrite "My Name Is" twice?
“I remember the first time I saw that video. I just thought: there goes the neighborhood. This dude is going to change everything, and half the people watching don't even know it yet.”
— Royce da 5'9", Complex, 2013
Beyond the Joke
The trick of "My Name Is" is that it sounds like a novelty record. It is not. The same album contains songs about poverty, suicide, and a father talking to his daughter while disposing of her mother's body. "My Name Is" gets you in the door. What is waiting on the other side is much darker.
97 Bonnie & Clyde
From The Slim Shady LP (1999). While "My Name Is" introduced America to the funny Slim Shady, this track introduced them to the terrifying one. Eminem narrates a trip to the lake with his infant daughter. In the trunk: her mother's body. Told in a gentle, sing-song voice, as if reading a bedtime story. It lives on the same album as the goofiest single of the year.
97 Bonnie & Clyde, Eminem (1999)
Read the lyrics while you listen. Told in a gentle, sing-song voice, as if reading a bedtime story. What's in the trunk makes it one of the most disturbing songs in hip-hop.
"My Name Is" by the numbers
The single is everywhere, but the album behind it is about to land like a grenade. Interscope executives are trying to shelve it. Dr. Dre tells them: "If you don't put this album out, I'm done here."
0 XP earned this session