Guess who’s back? Some of the biggest names in hip hop continue to make this year one of the hottest on record, including Kanye West with his new album Yeezus and the forthcoming Magna Cater Holy Grail from Jay-Z. Now you can add Detroit rapper Eminem to the list, who’s throwing his hat into the ring too for the ultimate hip hop showdown.
It’s been three years since Eminem’s last LP Recovery, /em> a return to form for the rapper that ended up selling more than 5.7 million copies worldwide, making it the biggest release of 2010.
But talk of a new album has been brewing for some time now, including fan-made fake song leaks and intense rumours of collaborations which have been all over the internet since Eminem announced he was just starting work on his 2013 album to Billboard.
Now, the first confirmed taste of what we can expect has arrived, with the rapper unleashing one-and-a-half minute’s worth of pure Marshall Mathers gold to Shady Records’ Soundcloud page yesterday – marking the release of his first solo material in several years.
The taste, from song titled ‘Symphony In H’, will feature on DJ Tony Touch’s mixtape, ‘The Piece Maker 3: Return of the 50 MCs,’ which is set for release on July 9.
Although the song isn’t expected to feature on Eminem’s forthcoming eight studio album, it should whet the appetite for what is sure to be one of the years biggest releases.
Talking to Billboard earlier this year, Shady Records’ president Paul Rosenberg revealed that efforts are well underway and that the rapper is “far into the process” of recording his untitled eighth studio album, due after Memorial Day. “We fully expect to be releasing a new Eminem album in 2013. He’s been working on it for some time,” Rosenberg added.
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“It’s safe to say that it will be post-Memorial Day at some point, but we’re not exactly sure when. We’ve got some dates locked in for him to perform live in Europe in August, so we’re trying to see what else lines up.”
The next chance that we might see some new rhymes in public is at Reading and Leed Festival in the UK, where Eminem is set to headline. At this point however it remains unknown whether he will be performing any new music.
Eminem has also been busy on the legal front as of late, with his publisher launching a lawsuit against makers of the popular social network Facebook after an Eminem song was reappropriated for an advertisement without permission.
The commercial, a fleeting 30-second online piece entitled “Airplane,” was issued on 4th April to announce the release of ‘Facebook Home,’ an interface for Android users. Following the suggestion by listeners that it had strong echoes of the Eminem track, “Under The Influence”, a version featuring new music was posted to YouTube only days after the original had been aired.
Lawyers from Eminem’s camp have since lodged a 12-page complaint to the Federal Court in Detroit, insisting that the ad blatantly copies Eminem’s single, released in 2000, and that the quick alteration “was an admission that Facebook knew it had infringed.” Martin is responsible for the rights and licensing of Eminem’s song catalogue, which now totals over 120 songs spanning over a near 20 year career.
It is known that Zuckerberg was a keen Eminem fan, judging by the multibillionaire’s teenage Angelfire website, the “About Me,” section greeting visitors with “Hi, my name is … Slim Shady. No, really, my name is Slim Shady. Just kidding, my name is Mark,” taken from “My Name Is,” one of the better known Eminem songs.
