His mom – who had recently hit him with a $10 million dollar defamation-of-character lawsuit – came in for particular scorn on opener “Kill You.” Perhaps his most harrowing song, “Kim” is a fantasy detailing an imaginary argument between Eminem and his wife just before he kills her. Undaunted (and even reveling) in the controversy he’d caused, the following year’s The Marshal Mathers LP found him expanding on the darkness of its predecessor, mixing razor-sharp humor with increasingly brutal personal attacks that often blurred the boundaries between fact and fiction on a collection that included the best Eminem songs to date.
The Slim Shady LP turned Eminem into a global star, though it also roused the ire of many concerned that its lyrics glorified violence, misogyny, and homophobia. That favor was returned with interest soon after, as Eminem delivered a series of rapid-fire, tongue-twisting rhymes on his mentor’s 2001 single “Forgot About Dre.” Under the aegis of his titular anti-hero, meanwhile, Eminem felt the freedom to expound on anything that took his fancy on darkly comic fantasies such as lead single “My Name Is,” which introduced Slim Shady as a vengeful, ogre-ish loose cannon, and “Guilty Conscience,” on which he uses his alter ego to trade lyrical blows on the subject of ethics with guest rapper Dr Dre. Nonetheless, “Rock Bottom” is one of the best Eminem songs, detailing a particularly dark period in his life. There are only a few songs on the record that aren’t rapped from the vantage point of Shady. Putting the ruse to use on 1998’s Slim Shady EP, the results so impressed legendary hip-hop producer Dr Dre that he signed the rapper to his Interscope imprint, co-producing an expanded version, The Slim Shady LP, the following year. Changing direction, Eminem took on a maniacal alter ego, Slim Shady – narrator of many of the best Eminem songs, through whom he could vent his anger with cartoonish black humor.
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