At a young age I could to rap the whole of Superman from start to end. I knew every big Eminem song out there by name at the time. When I grew up and started understanding music better, I went back and listened to his first few albums and I truly fell in love for the blond white boy (no homo). He had crazy bars that had you scratching your head to whether you should be listening to this (I'm talking about the song Kim) and fun songs that had you laughing halfway through at the absurdity of the lyrics.
In my 7th grade Recovery came out. This was the start of him collaborating a lot with pop singers and making songs more for the wider audience for some reason. It was cool at the time and had a few high moments. I was in grade 9 when MMLP2 came out. I was excited. I told everyone who could listen what was coming, and all the other rappers should take a break for the year. I was... as he said it... A Stan.
And then it dropped... and I was like... oh. Okay. I hyped up Rap God, so all my friends ignored how Eminem needed an extra verse to kill Kendrick Lamar on Love Game. It was a good showing but not great. In varsity I was still the Eminem Stan. My music tastes had evolved, and I listened to a greater variety of hip hop (especially old school southern hip hop). Then I heard he was releasing music... you can imagine my excitement.
Now imagine hearing Walk on Water. I played it 3 times. Gave it a week and tried again. What the hell was that nonsense... and don't let me get into the rest of the album. I would rather listen to an album where Big Sean raps about his Granny for a week than hear that nonsense. His rapping was good but not up to par. It seemed like on some songs his breathing pattern in a verse was a bit off. I don't know if it was on purpose or if its cause of old age, but it wasn't appealing... bullshit really.
Kamikaze was exciting at first listen. But I really couldn't go back to it and listen to it regularly. My image of him was already spoilt by a run of mediocre to bad albums going all the way back to Relapse. It had gotten to the point where he was sounding just like some angry old white guy with mommy issues.
The problem here is that his legacy is being tarnished. A couple of years ago babies like MGK would not have had the balls to even look at him... now they are getting into rap battles with the Rap God. The look of his discography is looking worse and worse. His contemporaries, most importantly, Jay-Z who has always been the guy I think he was competing with made Magna Carter, saw his mistakes (although I enjoyed it) and made 4:44 which some would argue is in his top 5 albums ever. There is growth in the sound of their music without leaving what makes them great. Also, in the content. They are not trying to fit in with the kids but are making music for themselves... which is what made them great.
At this point Stan probably regrets driving off that bridge...
I'm beginning to feel like he isn’t a rap god