Eminem admits Kendrick Lamar’s new album left him “speechless”

Eminem’s comments come a few months after he and Lamar performed onstage together as part of this year’s Super Bowl LVI halftime show in February, alongside Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Mary J. Blige

Lamar has been vocal about Eminem’s influence on him as an artist. It’s something that can be heard on some of Lamar’s more aggressive vocal performances, such as the third verse on ‘Backstreet Freestyle’ from 2012’s ‘Good Kid, M.A.A.D City’.

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Lamar elaborated on how Eminem’s approach to language had shaped him. “I got my clarity just studying Eminem when I was a kid. How I got in the studio was all just curiosity. I had a love for the music, but it was curiosity,” Lamar revealed.

“The day I heard The Marshall Mathers LP, I was just like, How does that work? What is he doing? How is he putting his words together like that? What’s the track under that? An ad-lib? What is that? And then, Why don’t you go in the studio and see? So I do that.

“Then it became, How’s his words cutting through the beat like that? What is he doing that I’m not doing, now that I’m into it? His time is impeccable. When he wants to fall off the beat, it’s impeccable. These are things that, through experience and time, I had to learn.”

‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ arrived last Friday (May 13) without any prior singles (apart from the non-album track ‘The Heart Part 5’.) The follow-up to 2017’s ‘DAMN.’ is an 18-track double album that features the likes of Portishead‘s Beth Gibbons, Ghostface Killah, Sampha, Baby Keem and actress Taylour Paige.

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In a five-star review, ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ a “cathartic, soul-baring autobiography” that “serves up vignettes about what it’s like to be a Black adult whose trauma still haunts them”.

“In laying his soul bare, he hopes we realise how we can set ourselves free from generational curses too. This album is as much about struggle as it is freedom, and what a beautiful sentiment that is.”

Lamar will take ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ on a world tour this year. The global run kicks off with a North American leg in July, continuing throughout August and September before heading to Europe and the UK in October and November. It will wrap up in December with a series of dates in Australia and New Zealand.