Taunting Secret Service: In "Gnat," Em puts together some rhymes that could earn him another visit from Secret Service. In it, Em has soured on his one-time sweetheart, and longs for better times with the love of his life. Hip-hop love song: Like Common's "I Used to Love H.E.R." - and Em's own "25 to Life," from his "Recovery" album - "Favorite B-" is a love song where the subject is hip-hop itself. "Here, my dear," Dre raps - a reference to Marvin Gaye's 1978 album, royalties from which were funneled to his ex-wife following their divorce - and he compares her to Ginger, Sharon Stone's character from "Casino."
Dre drops a verse on "Guns Blazing," one of his few vocal appearances since his 2015 album "Compton." On it, Dre seems to address his ex-wife Nicole Young, who filed for divorce from Dre earlier this year after 24 years of marriage. Hitchcock's sampled voice appears in several interludes on the album, and "Alfred's Theme" is built around a sample of "Funeral March of a Marionette," French composer Charles Gounod's 1870s piece that would later become the deceptively playful theme song to "Alfred Hitchcock Presents."ĭr. Uncle Alfred: Like its predecessor, "Music to Be Murdered By" draws inspiration from (and shares a title with) Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 spoken word album.
"Long as I re-promise to be honest, and wholeheartedly, apologies, Rihanna/ for that song that leaked, I'm sorry, Ri, It wasn't meant to cause you grief, regardless, it was wrong of me," Em raps. Sorry, Rihanna: In "Zeus," Em offers a rare apology, and it's directed toward Rihanna, his frequent collaborator and one-time tour-mate. Last year, a previously unreleased Em verse was leaked to the internet which found Em siding with Chris Brown after his 2009 assault on the singer.
One example, from "These Demons," in which he addresses both the Black Lives Matter marches and, er, other forms of 2020 protests: “This pandemic got us in a recession, we need to reopen America/ black people dying, they want equal rights, white people want to get haircuts.” Pandemic rhymes: There are a host of references to COVID-19, quarantine and the pandemic throughout the album, making "Side B" a true product of 2020. Here's a quick guide to what to expect on Eminem's latest.