A bad rap

Eminem The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (Polydor) ⋆⋆

Remaining relevant in the rap game has always been difficult. Where rock fans tend to venerate their veterans, ageing MCs often slide into insignificance.

Take the very first hip-hop hitmakers, The Sugarhill Gang. Two decades after their 1979 breakthrough they were performing trashy nightclub sets and sounding awfully bitter during interviews. The edgier next wave – Ice T, Ice Cube, LL Cool J – wisely turned to acting. All now have recurring roles as cops, ironically.

Having amassed a healthy fortune – albeit more from TV ads than recent albums – Eminem has no need to hawk his old hits around dreary nightspots. And yet the emergence of this belated sequel smacks of a similar dearth of new ideas, a cynical yearning for the glory years.

The Detroit rapper was at his headline-grabbing peak in 2000, when the Marshall Mathers LP became America’s fastest-selling solo album. Nakedly autobiographical – Mathers is his real name – it bored deeply into the roots and rage of this significant new voice.

That voice is slightly gruffer, 13 years on. “Wasn’t ready to be no millionaire,” he admits on the rock-powered anthem, Survival, before lamenting that his earlier work was about “standing for something”.

And now? “Here’s the sequel to my Mathers LP,” announces the deranged protagonist of Bad Guy, a patchy follow-up to the epic single, Stan. “How’s this for a publicity stunt?” A joke, perhaps, but it soon becomes horribly apparent that this once transcendent talent is now treading water, rather than walking on it.

Eminem’s back catalogue boasts some wonderfully rich wordplay, but clichés abound here, lazy choruses suggesting a lack of care or commitment. Worse are the woefully uninspired samples, rudely wrenched from classic singles (notably The Zombies’ already much-abused Time of the Season), over which he performs a sort of hip-hop karaoke. And the now 41-year-old rapper really should retire the juvenile lewdness: his duet with Kendrick Lamar, Love Game, is ­execrable.

Rihanna offers respite on Monster – which immediately follows one of Eminem’s own misguided attempts at crooning – although that perennial lady-sings-the-chorus formula also becomes tiresome. More interesting is the penultimate track, Headlights, featuring Nate Ruess from the band fun. and some revealing lyrics about familial strife. These fresh insights are welcome, but only on Rap God does the star deign to fully demonstrate the rapid-fire skills that got him signed in the first place.

Does Mathers still matter? The TV cop shows are calling.

artslife@thenational.ae