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We tried to tell you Eminem was going to be everywhere this fourth quarter. From lighting up the weekend on SNL to closing out the first-ever YouTube Awards, Slim Shady is on that #1 spot and, at press time, his MMLP2 has yet to be released.

His latest crash course with the media comes courtesy of Complex mag who decided to deviate themselves from the normalcy of the typical Q&A interview. Fully taking advantage of the digital platform at their disposal, they released a double cover. The first side displays all the gloss and shine you’d expect from any brand-spankin’ new magazine on newsstands.

On the contrary, the second cover is reminiscent to an old The Source magazine found under the bed of your childhood domicile, perfectly meeting the theme of a 1998 encounter Complex Chief Content Officer, Noah Callahan-Bever had with the “Berserk” rapper.

Peep an excerpt from the interview:

It was September 1998, and myself, Jonathan Shecter, Stretch Armstrong, Royce da 5’9”, Paul Rosenberg, and one Marshall Mathers III were assembled at GAME Recordings’ TriBeCa office listening to new tunes. Eminem’s first album, The Slim Shady LP, was in the can, to be released early the following year, and he was in NYC to handle Interscope business. I’d brought an advance of Jay’s Vol 2… Hard Knock Life, which I’d come by via my staff writer position at BLAZE magazine, and Em had these sketches of what would become 2001. A lot of good songs had already been played.

And then: Genteel chimes gave way to a manic piano line, Em’s baby talk preamble escalated to a violent threat. “Sit down, bitch, you move again I’ll BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOU!” The air in the room was gone. He was playing “Kim” for us and WEOENO. As his beautiful ugliness exploded from the speakers, no one made eye contact. No one did anything. We just listened. We’d never heard a record like this. Shit, a record like this had never existed. After wowing us with his inventive wordplay and cartoonish creativity on his first album, Eminem had bared it all. He’d untethered himself from convention, from shame, from morality, from all things socially acceptable. Unhinged and unhindered, he had crafted one of the most brutal, honest, repulsive, intoxicating musical moments ever.

The song finished and we all sat quiet. No one spoke. I already considered Em a tremendous talent, but that moment—disturbed and awed—was the first time it passed through my mind that dude might be one of the great artists of my generation. Of course not for a moment did I consider the baggage that comes with that distinction.

“So yeah, what do you guys think?”

Read the full story over at Complex as Shadymania lives to see another day.

Photo: Complex

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