Eminem praises Westside Boogie’s new album and talks about mental health & addiction.
Westside Boogie made his return with a second Shady Records album called “More Black Superheroes“, a follow-up to his critically-acclaimed 2019 debut album “Everything’s for Sale”. The label boss Eminem also took part in the promo run as he connected through a call on Shade 45’s Sway In The Morning.
On the show, the host asked the rapper about how rapping about mental health and addiction in his early career helped him transform. “Well, I think that’s, that’s one of the great things about rap music is that, you know, you could put so much of your life in it. I was just trying to figure out how to expand on that and I kinda got lost,” he said.
“It’s therapeutic and it’s, you know, that’s how it’s always been for me. But with this album, with this new Boogie album, the, the title, everything is f**king, everything’s great. And it’s like, you know, watching him, watching him just keep getting better and better and better is incredible too. And he’s got so much of his life weaved in this album. You know what I’m saying? Like, I think that it’s like, it’s therapeutic.”
In an interview with Men’s Journal, the rapper talked about his Recovery process after the 2007 overdose. “In 2007, I overdosed on pills, and I went into the hospital. I was close to 230 pounds. I’m not sure how I got so big, but I have ideas. The coating on the Vicodin and the Valium I’d been taking for years leaves a hole in your stomach, so to avoid a stomachache, I was constantly eating — and eating badly.”
He continued, “When I got out of rehab, I needed to lose weight, but I also needed to figure out a way to function sober. Unless I was blitzed out of my mind, I had trouble sleeping. So I started running. It gave me a natural endorphin high, but it also helped me sleep, so it was perfect. It’s easy to understand how people replace addiction with exercise. One addiction for another but one that’s good for them. I got an addict’s brain, and when it came to running, I think I got a little carried away. I became a f**king hamster. Seventeen miles a day on a treadmill. I would get up in the morning, and before I went to the studio, I would run eight and a half miles in about an hour. Then I’d come home and run another eight and a half. I started getting OCD about the calories, making sure I burned 2,000 every day. In the end I got down to about 149 pounds. I ran to the point where I started to get injured. All the constant pounding from the running began to tear up my hip flexors.”
Eminem’s battle with addiction is still referenced in his songs, particularly on the 2010 album Recovery. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified Recovery as 8-platinum earlier this year, making it Eminem’s third-highest album behind The Marshall Mathers LP (2000) and The Eminem Show (2002).
This week, Eminem released new songs as well. On June 16, he released “The King & I,” a duet with CeeLo Green that will be used on the soundtrack for Baz Luhrmann’s biopic, Elvis.
