Eminem addresses the issue of his aggressive flow and voice on MMLP2.
Eminem’s voice and flow have changed a lot over the last couple of decades, and one of the major instances was during the “MMLP2” era when he was criticised for his aggressive and harder vocals. The rapper appeared on the latest episode of Paul Rosenberg’s “Paul Pod: Curtain Call 2” podcast, where the two talked about working with Rick Rubin for the album in 2013, and the Detroit rapper also addresses the criticism for his vocals.
“Something you said was that ‘it wasn’t digestible’ or something like that,” said Eminem. “So I let off the gas. Some people like when I rap fast, some people don’t. So I was trying to make songs that were more digestible, but I’m also always worried that if I just do that, people are like ‘oh he fell off, he can’t rap anymore’.”
“At the time, I probably felt like based upon feedback, experience etc, that you were doing something too much, and I don’t remember exactly what it was,” responds Rosenberg.
Eminem continued, “Actually at that time period, I don’t know if we’ve talked about this publicly, but I know me and you have had the discussion about, there was a few years where, my tinnitus was getting really bad. The ringing in my ears was almost louder than the music so what started happening, is slowly but surely over time, I started putting extra mid-range in my voice.”
“Because for me to get it out and be able to hear it, for whatever reason, that was the tone that was easiest for my ears to hear the inflections and sh*t like that. And as we went to LA and saw that doctor, and the tinnitus started getting better, I pulled back on the vocal a bit. But going back and listening to that sh*t now, I didn’t leave any gaps, everything was like, there was no parts to be able to breathe.”
More than 792,000 copies of The Marshall Mathers LP 2 were sold within its first week, propelling it to the top spot on the US Billboard 200. It received a quadruple platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America in March 2017. Additionally, it is Eminem’s sixth album to debut at No. 1. With 210,000 additional copies sold during its second week, the album fell to number two.
Check out part 1 of the podcast below.
