Eminem was a star before he released the raw, masterful
Marshall Mathers LP in 2000, but that’s the album that catapulted him into stratospheric cultural omnipresence. And later this year, he’ll follow it up with a sequel,
The Marshall Mathers LP 2. Em made the announcement during last night’s
VMA broadcast, advertising the new album in two Beats By Dre commercials. Beyond its title, its release date, and those two clips of music, we only know one thing: Dr. Dre and Rick Rubin both serve as executive producers. Based on those two clips of music, we can hear the discouraging reality that Em is keeping up with his all-too-intense speed-yell delivery, also in evidence on his recent single “
Survival.” He’s also bleating about “straight hip-hop,” so things will almost certainly get into grumpy-old-man territory. On the other hand, he’s back to bleached hair and fisheye lenses, which is encouraging. And the two tracks we hear previewed lean heavily on Rubin’s old minimal guitars-and-808s energy, and one of them samples the hell out of Billy Squier’s “The Stroke,” a very good thing. Check out the two previews below.