5 Takeaways From “The Face-Off”

Eminem recently appeared on Complex’s YouTube channel to sit down with an AI-generated version of his alter ego, Slim Shady. The conversation comes just a few weeks after Eminem released The Death Of Slim Shady. The album is one that he also billed as a farewell to the character that helped launch him into superstardom. Eminem and Shady touch on a variety of topics, including Em’s post-Slim Shady career and recovery from addiction. They also deliver a number of barbs at the expense of MGK and Caitlyn Jenner. Here are five takeaways from Eminem and Slim Shady’s conversation.

One might expect a man in his early 50s to not be as in tune with pop culture as he may have been two decades ago. That is not the case with Eminem. “Every other week on TikTok, Gen Z discovers you on Monday and cancels me on Tuesday,” he tells Slim Shady early in their conversation. Later in the video, Em and Shady reference the infamous Drake and LeBron James “am I letting you down?” conversation from The Shop after Pusha T released “The Story of Adidon.” 

During a talk about fatphobia and body positivity, Em tells Shady that they “cured fatness” with a shot. He warns him that the shot “comes with a side of jealousy,” referring to a line Drake had for Rick Ross on his “Family Matters” diss track. Em also calls Shady “BBL Slizzy,” referring to Metro Boomin’s response to Drake. When the two of them come to a mutual understanding at the end, they do the “look at us, who’d have thought?” meme from Paul Rudd’s Hot Ones interview. Clearly, Em is still very in touch with what’s going on today, even if his new music doesn’t always suggest that.

Eminem and Slim Shady discuss the creative missteps Em took after his first three albums at length. They argue over “FACK,” which fans and Eminem alike agree is one of his worst songs ever. They blame each other for writing the song. Em then mentions that since it’s on his greatest hits album Curtain Call, the song technically went Diamond. From there, they dive into talking about Relapse, Eminem’s 2009 comeback effort. “I was in recovery. I had to relearn how to rap,” Em tells Shady After Shady makes fun of him for rapping in different accents across the album. “And for what it’s worth, there’s an entire generation of people who think that’s a f***ing classic.” Eminem previously disavowed Relapse and has often called it his worst release. It seems that some reappraisals of his first post-rehab work led to him softening his own stance on the album.

“Let’s talk about the people you dissed. Lyrical titans. Ja Rule, Moby, Fred Durst, who else? Christina Aguilera? Who’s really punching down?” Slim Shady asks Eminem about halfway through the conversation. Those few names are only a handful on a much larger list of people Em took shots at over the course of his career. He has the self-awareness to recognize that, in hindsight, many of those feuds were pointless. Most of those he attacked weren’t rappers, and the rappers he did go back and forth with were not comparable to him. He also addresses his one-sided feud with deceased actor Christopher Reeve, whose paralysis is something that Eminem has made fun of for decades. “Yeah, the guy fell off a horse. He’s dead! He’s been dead for twenty f***ing years! Leave him alone,” Em yells at Shady. The segment was not necessarily an apology for his past feuds. Rather, it was more of a backhanded admission that he could have picked better opponents to feud with.

The conversation with Shady serves primarily as an opportunity for Eminem to reflect on his career, as well as the impact that the persona had on it. “If we’re being honest, the music that you’ve dropped since I bounced ain’t it,” Shady says near the beginning of the conversation. Em immediately points out that once he dropped the Slim Shady character, he released his most commercially successful singles ever. Later on, Em criticizes the fame he achieved as Slim Shady. “I invented you because my life was f***ed up […] But you didn’t fix anything, you actually made s**t worse. You’re the reason I had to self-medicate, and you’re the reason I almost lost my career, my family, and my life.” Of course, Shady responds by ignoring Eminem and opening a can of Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre’s new Gin & Juice drink, to which Em mentions that he’s 16 years sober. It is nice to see Eminem in a better mental space, one where he’s able to poke at various parts of his career.

“No one understands how f***ing toxic it is to always be the bad guy,” Slim Shady laments near the end of the video. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, snowflake. We all know you mean well,” Em responds. Eminem has often said that Slim Shady is a character. Fans know that Em is not usually trying to harm people with his words, but that hasn’t stopped him from getting swipes in at everyone he can. By the end of the discussion, after working through everything with Shady, it’s clear that Eminem does not feel much regret at this point in his life. Because of his recovery, he is sober and his relationships with his children are stronger than ever. And, he has both publicly apologized to and forgiven his ex-wife and his mother, two extreme sources of anger for him in his early music and two people who suffered the most from the creation of Slim Shady in the first place. For Em, it seems that the past is the past. The Death Of Slim Shady, as well as this conversation, attempts to put his old persona behind him as well.