Did you have Eminem releasing a new single on your Bingo card? Neither did I. He released “Houdini,” and in the music video, 2002 Eminem enters a portal to see what life is like in 2024. Also, there’s a cameo by Philly comedian Shane Gillis for a brief second on a fake set of The Joe Rogan Experience:

Now I’m not going to lie and say Em’s still got it like people born in the 90s are doing on the Internet right now. I have more class than that. He’s still a lyrical genius don’t get me wrong, but every time I hear a new Eminem song it’s hard to abandon the thought that I’m watching a guy rapping in his 50s who just dyed his hair. It’s the same reason I never watched Ice Cube’s basketball league. I didn’t want my last memory to be a gimpy Allen Iverson barely able to get any lift on his jumper. It’s okay if Eminem never raps again. He gave us enough and he has more money than god to just hang out in Detroit, root for the Lions, and have a guest appearance when a rapper that does need the money stops through 8 Mile on tour. It definitely didn’t help that he had cameos from all of our favorite rappers from back then who look old and fat now. I liked this song more than I thought I would though.

At least it gave me the opportunity to go back and watch the “Without Me” video for the first time in five years. Watching it back made me realize we were witnessing one of the single greatest music videos ever created at that time. If you don’t shout, “OBIE TRICE! REAL NAME NO GIMMICKS!” every time you hear this song do you even remember Y2K, bro?

 

This is when Eminem was on fire. The only thing he had more than #1 records was beefs. It’s hard to put into perspective how impressive his run was. Every time he’d release an album he’d immediately jump to the top of the charts and like half the radio stations in the country weren’t allowed to play his songs because the FCC banned them. Back then the radio was the only way a musician could get noticed. You either were on the radio or Carson Daly played your music video on TRL. Nowadays if you’re not on the radio you can blow up on YouTube or SoundCloud. DatPiff wasn’t even around when Eminem was starting out. The run was so monumental he would’ve been Antonio Brown’s Cracker of the Year back in 2002.


This dude was like what a 10-leg parlay is now for white people. Parents HATED this guy. White trash guys like me who wore their shorts down to their ankles and let their boxers show ate this shit up. He even gave us a pass to wear a durag. You know how hard that was before 2002? I even tricked my grandmom into getting me the Parental Advisory version of The Eminem Show for Christmas by telling her Parental Advisory means that the record label advises parents to get this one because it doesn’t have any curse words in it. It worked. She never knew. Sorry Grandma.

This was literally me on Christmas after I finessed my sweet Gam-Gam:

Kinkead: the best Eminem song is “The Way I Am.” His dark and introspective stuff was so much better than the goofy TRL stuff. “And they blame it on MARILYN and the heroin, but where were the parents at?”