Eminem appeared on BET’s “Rap City Presents: Em 360,” a special program surrounding this week’s release of his The Marshall Mathers LP 2.
During the interview, Eminem spoke about the mentality behind several albums, including 1996’s Infinite, his release prior to being signed by Aftermath and Interscope.
“Broke,” Eminem said of his mentality while making Infinite. “Just hungry, man. I feel like I still am, but definitely back then it was a real sense of urgency.”
Eminem also discussed his mind state while crafting 1999’s The Slim Shady LP, his debut album on Aftermath/Interscope.
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“Anxious,” he said. “Anxious just to be out there. I’ve always loved Hip Hop so much that I’ve always wanted to be a part of it. Getting signed with Dre and the way everything felt, although I don’t remember a lot due to certain substances and circumstances, I do remember the feeling of just first getting signed with Dre.”
Eminem also addressed the mindstate he had while working on 2009’s Relapse.
“Off drugs,” Eminem said. “It was interesting, man. I don’t know if before Relapse, if we’re talking the Infinite album and pre-signing with Dre and all that, from that point on, I don’t know if I ever did anything or did much sober at all. Relapse was the first album and first recordings that I did when the lights went on and I was sober. I was still trying to figure things out…It’s interesting. Fun time. I had a fun time.”
Following Relapse, Eminem detailed the reason he felt he needed to redeem himself on 2010’s Recovery.
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“There was an underlying feeling with me that I wanted to redeem myself,” Eminem said. “I felt Relapse was, I don’t know. I don’t know if people know what I really had to go through to be able to make Relapse and to be able to write again and to be able to think again and just normal everyday bodily functions and functions in my mind. I don’t want to say I wasn’t in a place to record again, but I needed time. I needed time to be able to figure out things. I wanted to be able to make my songs feel like something again. I know a lot of stuff on Relapse was comical and funny punchline jokes, but a lot of the songs didn’t really feel like anything. I had to go back and listen to some of my older music to try to figure out what I was doing wrong. Once I felt like I figured that out, I started making songs that felt like something again.”
Another album Eminem discussed was his original The Marshall Mathers LP, which was released in 2000.
“Fast,” Eminem said. “Fast, like things zipping by me. Everything was happening fast. A lot of it is really blurry to me. This swirl of everything happening at once felt like my life was whizzing by me. I felt like I was being drug here or drug there. I almost didn’t feel in control of my life anymore. All I wanted to do was rap, but I didn’t know how much work went into this…All I wanted to do, especially at that time…All I still want to do, but especially at that time, was I just want to rap. I come from the underground. I’m an underground emcee. I just want to rap. I just want my records to be heard by enough people to where I get respected by my peers. That’s all I want. I don’t wanna go do three shows in one day and then this club appearance. It’s just a lot. At that time, I wasn’t ready for it and I don’t think nobody was in the camp. It was crazy for all of us.”
More from this interview can be viewed below.
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