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At the stroke of midnight on Friday, January 17, iconic Detroit rapper Eminem released a surprise new album, Music To Be Murdered By, and it includes some traditionally controversial Slim Shady lyrics.
On the album’s second track, “Unaccomadating” featuring Young M.A., Eminem references the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing attack that took the lives of 23 people.
“I’m contemplating yelling bombs away on the game like I’m outside an Ariana Grande concert,” he raps.
In addition to the 23 dead, the Manchester Arena Bombing — carried out by then 22-year-old Islamic extremist Salman Ramadan Abedi on May 22, 2017 — resulted in over 139 wounded, with “more than half” of them being children.
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This certainly is not the first time that Eminem has caused controversy with his lyrics, as contentious content has been an integral part of his brand and identity ever since he burst onto the scene in the late 1990s with his first two studio albums, The Slim Shady L.P. and The Marshall Mathers L.P.
For example, The Mashall Mathers L.P. — arguably Eminem’s most revered album — includes the track “Kim”, which is essentially a six-minute-long murder fantasy that details Mathers killing his wife Kim Scott. However, that album came out almost 20 years ago, prior to the invention of social media.
Music To Be Murdered By — which includes features from the likes of Young M.A., Ed Sheeran, Royce da 5’9″, Juice WRLD, Skylar Grey, Black Thought Q-Tip, Anderson .Paak, Don Toliver, Joell Ortiz, and White Gold — is Eminem’s tenth studio album and his first since 2018’s Kamikaze.
At the time of this writing — about 1 a.m. EST — Ariana Grande has yet to publicly respond to 47-year-old’s incendiary lyrics.
You can stream all 20 tracks on Music To Be Murdered By below:
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Eric is a New York City-based writer who still isn’t quite sure how he’s allowed to have this much fun for a living and will tell anyone who listens that Gotham City is canonically in New Jersey. Follow him on Twitter @eric_ital for movie and soccer takes or contact him eric@brobible.com