Eminem is back, but the real Slim Shady might not stand up for much longer.
On Thursday evening, the Grammy Award-winning rapper announced the release of his upcoming album entitled The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce).
The album, which is Eminem’s twelfth, will be released this summer.
Eminem (real name Marshall Mathers), 51, announced the release with a playful video advertising a faux true-crime show about the death of Slim Shady, Eminem’s longstanding rap alter ego.
“Through his complex and oft-criticized, tongue-twisting rhymes, the anti-hero known as Slim Shady has had no shortage of enemies,” a crime reporter narrates for the non-existent Detroit Murder Files.
Rapper 50 Cent cameos in the video and says Slim Shady “is not a friend. He’s a psychopath.”
The reporter then tells the camera Slim Shady’s “rude lyrics and controversial antics” may have brought on his demise. At the video’s conclusion, Eminem reveals himself from behind a censor blurring his face and says, “I knew it was just a matter of time for Slim.”
Slim Shady, a character often attributed for Eminem’s darker, vulgar and more violent lyrics, emerged from the rapper’s 1997 Slim Shady EP.
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The single My Name Is introduced listeners to Slim Shady, who opens the song by rapping, “Hi, kids, do you like violence? / Wanna see me stick nine-inch nails through each one of my eyelids?”
Eminem announced his upcoming album just before making an appearance at the NFL Draft in Detroit. (He was featured in the draft’s cold open alongside NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.)
His last album, Music to Be Murdered By, was released without any promotion in January 2020.
In October, Eminem launched a line of jarred pasta sauces, appropriately named Mom’s Spaghetti, in reference to the rapper’s 2002 hit single Lose Yourself.
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