Eminem should stop saying he’s “back”. He’s been doing it after nearly every hiatus since The Marshal Mathers LP and even then it came across as a lazy cliché. This newest return is nonetheless significant as he goes back to the tradition of teasing a new album with a fun first single à la The Real Slim Shady, Without Me, Just Lose It and We Made You.

Houdini; the rapper’s new alphabetical idolization after Hitchcock; is one of the better among them. The beat is appropriately goofy. The raps, which mock censorship for old times sake, are appropriately defiant. The third verse is particularly entertaining as he offers a funny “fuck you” to everyone from R Kelly to trannies to his “own kids; they’re brats.”

my rating : 4 of 5

2024