Review Summary: An amazing debut from a rising, hustling star that, even twenty years after the fact, lives on in the annels of pop culture.
"Hi! My name is-- what?! My name is-- who?! My name is-- CHIKKA CHIKKA-- Slim Shady!"
Can you name a more iconic opener in the history of hip-hop? Right out the gate, Slim Shady, this out-of-nowhere, wacky, multisyllabic force of nature, marks himself a tour de force of rap and hip-hop... but, plot twist: Slim Shady is *actually* Eminem himself. See, Eminem's first debut, Infinite, was a pretty good album all told, full of clever wordplay, engaging beats, and hard-hitting rhymes. Marshall was a guy with something to prove, but he was regrettably slammed by the critics for sounding too much like Nas and AZ. An unfair thing to say, but it was kind of true, so Eminem had to change gears. He was getting a lot of unfair feedback about how he was a white guy trying to make it big in the rap game, told he should go into rock and roll or something ridiculous like that. Well luckily for all of us, that's not what happened. Instead, Eminem donned a brand-new persona, one that would change the face of hip-hop forever... he became: Slim Shady!
1. Public Service Announcement - this is a skit performed by Em and Jeff Bass. It's pretty funny, it makes you think that Jeff's being held at gunpoint by Slim and made to say a bunch of stuff that he doesn't really want to say. Slim's "yeah, don't do drugs" comment at the end is super ironic, given that he definitely does drugs. It's a little short, though, so it could have been taken out entirely. 3/5.
2. My Name Is - this song slaps! This song's such a banger. Slim sets himself up as an absolute thug, rapping about Nine Inch Nails and a ton of tongue-in-cheek violence and sex and drugs. This also contains the first of many cameos that Dr. Dre's made in his songs, and he really adds to how funny this song is. This is a perfect Eminem song. 5/5.
3. Guilty Conscience - This is a cool, subversive song about people about to commit various crimes, who's torn between his shoulder angel (cleverly played by Dre) and his shoulder devil (Slim, natch) - the devil, of course, usually wins out in the end. This song actually references 'Stan' years before that song even happened, so Guilty Conscience contains some cool foreshadowing. 5/5, very clever.
4. Brain Damage - This track's really silly, funny, and tongue-in-cheek, opening with a skit about a doctor and a nurse before it dives into a long, multisyllabic rap about a white kid prone to go crazy at any moment (remind you of anyone?) The second verse has some of Em's best rhyming schemes yet: "An eighth grader who acted obnoxious, cause his father boxes, so everyday he'd shove me in the lockers." Like, who thinks of that?? 4.5/5.
5. If I Had - I really like this song, it's more moody and somber than pretty much everything else on this record. It feels like Slim Shady takes a step back and lets the Eminem persona just rap about how harsh the world can be sometimes, that he'd tell 'em all to go sit and spin if he could. "If I had a million bucks, it wouldn't be enough, because I'd still be out robbing armored trucks!" is a super-cool line, it says so much about the psychology of Marshall at the time, how he was still a go-getter young hustler trying to make it big. The beat is super laidback and the monologue at the beginning is really sad and thought-provoking - I've thought some of the very same things he's saying in the intro. 5/5.
6. Role Model - This is a song that's LOADED with irony, with a tongue-in-cheek approach to being a "role model". It feels like he's addressing his critics and naysayers directly, especially with clever lines like "Y'all don't even see through the mist / how the *** can I be white? I don't even exist." This is guaranteed to make you laugh, so it gets a 4/5 for that alone.
7. Just Don't Give a F-ck - This song has an interesting backstory because it's one of the only songs that comes from another record - it comes from the Slim Shady EP ("extended play", compared to this record which is a "long play"), alongside If I Had and '97 Bonnie and Clyde (although it was known as "Just The Two of Us" on the extended play, and was probably changed due to copyright). 3.5/5.
8. Bad Meets Evil - this is arguably the origin story of Bad Meets Evil, which was a rap duo group formed between Eminem and Royce da 5'9, a rapper who - go figure - features on this very track! They broke up after a while due to a fued with Eminem's other band, D12 (who regrettably don't feature on the SSLP), but they seemed to have let bygones be bygones as of 2010. 4/5.
9. Still Don't Give a F-ck - I don't often see sequels to songs on the *same album*, so I can admire Eminem for being unique! This song has a cool, dark, rainy and ghetto vibe that makes it feel like a twisted sequel to "If I Had" - basically, 'If I Had' if Eminem never got a million dollars and kept robbing armored trucks. I can respect this hour-long LP for ending on a sad, down-to-earth, subversive note like this. 5/5.
In conclusion, this album is exactly as good as everyone says it. There's a good reason that this was Slim's breakout record - it's daring, it's bold, it's unique, it's clever as hell, and it's actually such a breath of fresh air from rap that came out both when this album did and Soundcloud rap these days. Hell, it's even better than the more boring material Eminem puts out these days - that being said, growing older will do that to a rapper, so I can respect Eminem for, at one point, being the undisputed king of the rap game for almost a decade straight... and it all started with this.
FAVORITE SONGS:
My Name Is
Guilty Conscience
Brain Damage
If I Had
Still Don't Give a F-ck
