Eminem’s Surprise Album, Kamikaze , Takes Shots at Donald Trump, Drake, and More

Vogue
Updated
Eminem releases a 13-track surprise album with the note that he “tried not 2 overthink this 1 . . . enjoy.”

Eminem debuted a surprise album—his 10th—late on Thursday night with next to no fanfare or lead-up in the press. “Tried not 2 overthink this 1 . . . enjoy,” the artist wrote on Twitter, announcing the release of the project, called Kamikaze, which is streaming on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, iTunes, and other digital providers. The 13-track album—executive produced by Eminem and Dr. Dre—has cover art inspired by the Beastie Boys’s 1986 Licensed to Ill and takes no prisoners in terms of topicality: President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, the Grammy Awards, the press, Lil Pump, Lil Yachty, Lil Xan, Tyler, The Creator, and Drake are all among those who come under fire in the rapper’s infamously sharp style.

The most potent of the statements among the bluster and digs and spewed offense at the rest of the hip-hop community are political: In his first track, “The Ringer,” Eminem follows up on his freestyles from last year, in which he called out Trump for potentially causing a “nuclear Holocaust,” and told fans that “any fan of mine/Who’s a supporter of his/I’m drawing in the sand a line/You’re either for or against/And if you can’t decide/Who you like more and you’re split/On who you should stand beside/I’ll do it for you with this” (raising his middle finger to the camera). It’s a pose that the Detroit-raised rapper has clearly thought about since. “That line in the sand, was it even worth it?/’Cause the way I see people turning/Is making it seem worthless/It’s starting to defeat the purpose/I’m watching my fan base shrink to thirds/And I was just trying to do the right thing, but word,” Eminem raps.

“If I could go back, I’d at least reword it/And say I empathize with the people this evil serpent sold the dream to that he’s deserted,” Eminem continues, adding that “Agent Orange just sent the Secret Service/To meet in person to see if I really think of hurting him/Or ask if I’m linked to terrorists/I said, ‘Only when it comes to ink and lyricists.’” In later tracks, he effectively rolls his eyes at “mumble rap” and hip-hop stars who use ghostwriters, and seems to address his previous issues with addiction, such as in “Stepping Stone,” in which he sings: “Imma wash away my sins/Imma rinse away this dirt/I forgot to make amends/To all the friends I may have hurt.” By Friday morning Kamikaze had reached number one on the U.S. iTunes sales chart.

Read More Culture Stories:

  • Melania Trump Meets Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in Strange Video—Read More

  • How Pope Francis Is Changing the Catholic Church—Read More

  • Serena Williams’s Husband, Alexis Ohanian, Makes All the Other Husbands Look Bad—Read More

  • Lindsay Lohan’s New Reality TV Show: Is She Our Next Lisa Vanderpump?—Read More

  • Phone Addiction? Here’s One Way to Fix It—Read More

See the videos.