Album Review : Relapse

Imagine growing up on the wrong side of Detroit in a trailer park where you are being beaten by your mother and constantly raped by your stepfather. Then somehow you find your niche in the world and figure out that you're really good at hip-hop. You have a baby with your high school girlfriend, while your rap career is blowing up at a fast rate and your fame is spreading like the flu. You put out three albums hailed in the hip hop community as classics, selling tens of millions of records worldwide and then in an instant it's halted. The horid past comes back to haunt you as your bestfriend is fatally shot, you divorce,remarry, then divorce your wife again, and you begin to consume perscription drugs at an obsessive rate. Then you put your life on hold for four years.
This is where one finds Eminem. After an almost five year hiatus from the top of the rap world Eminem is back with his new album Relapse. Like the Eminem of old, for the first single of the album he has hit us with the catchy pop-tune, "We Made You" which in contrary attacks the same people whom he shares a celebrity spotlight with. But despite the single, this is Eminem's most dark and personal release to date. Eminem has laced the tracks behind Dre's mean drums with his classic witty scenic wordplay mixed with his ' rat-ta-tat-tat' syllable stucture to create a tracks like the brutal, leveling "Insane" where he goes into explicit detail of how he was raped by his stepfather as a child and then " 3AM" where Em tells the story of waking up from an overdose on pills to a hospital in which everyone is dead- implying that he murdered them all. The other notable tracks on Relapse are two of his most introspective songs ever," Beautiful" and "Deja Vu".
In "Beautiful" he talks about his depression, his loss of love for hip-hop. This is probably the best song on the album with its tear-jerking chorus sung by Em. Its a perfect fit for a sold out arena on a final tour. Then you have the regret filled "Deja Vu", where Em sees himself blaming Proof's death for his pill addiction. 'So i take a vicodin splash it hits my stomach and ahh/A couple weeks go by it aint even like im getting high/now i need it just not to feel sick ya im getting by/Wouldn't even be taking this shit if deshaun didn't die/Oh ya theres an excuse you lose proof so you use'.
All fans and even non-fans will appreciate the latest work from Slim Shady, fans will be refreshed that he is back and hip hop head will be glad that one of the greatest came back behind the mic.