Eminem’s ‘The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce)’ Becomes His 11th No. 1 Album On Billboard 200
Eminem is deep in the game but still putting up numbers. The 51-year-old’s latest album The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce) debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 charts this week.
The 19-track album came out less than two weeks ago (July 12) and made the biggest impact of any rap album in 2024. It sold 281,000 album-equivalent units in its first week and became the Detroit rapper’s 11th No. 1 album.
This achievement put him in the same class as Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, and Kanye West who all have 11 No. 1’s on the long-running chart. The four now only trail behind Drake (13 No. 1’s), Jay-Z and Taylor Swift (14 No. 1’s), and The Beatles (19 No. 1’s).
Eminem, in typical fashion, took shots at several people on his newest album. On “Antichrist,” he referenced Diddy for assaulting Cassie in 2016. “Next idiot ask me is gettin’ his a** beat worse than Diddy did [pause]/ But on the real, though/ She prolly ran out the room with his f**kin’ dildo/ He try to field goal punt her, she said to chill/ Now put it back in my a** and get the steel toe,” he rapped.
He did it again on “Fuel” featuring JID, rapping, “I’m like a R-A-P-E-R/ Got so many S-As, S-As/ Wait, he didn’t just spell the word ‘rapper’ and leave out a P, did he?/ R.I.P., rest in peace Biggie/ And ‘Pac, both of y’all should be living/ But I ain’t tryna beef with him/ ‘Cause he might put a hit on me like Keefe D did him.”
Slim Shady didn’t just stick to the men either as Lizzo was a topic of his bars. On “Road Rage,” he rapped “Ain’t never really truly over ’til Lizzo sings/ We should coddle fat people, yeah, here’s a concept, let’s celebrate onset/ Diabetes and instead of us dieting we can just have a pie-eating contest.”
Eminem also mentioned Candace Owens on the tracks “Lucifer” and “Bad One,” questioning if she was Black enough and aiming at her political stances. She responded, “First thing I wanna say is Eminem is obviously a gay man. It’s very sad that Eminem cleaned out his closet but never came out of his closet. I just would like to again remind people that he is in fact a struggling internally gay man and we should pray for him.”
Owens claimed that her responding to him was beneficial as it would help him gain traction on the internet. “I’m doing this because I want to help him go viral because this is sad,” she said. “This is very sad. I want you to feel sad for Eminem. Because this is just not the way for someone’s career to go down the drain, and I want us all to do our part to help make Eminem relevant again. At the very least, he can be relevant just by me speaking about him. And he understands that.”
She countered claims about her not being Black enough by bringing up the “Lose Yourself” rapper turning his back on his race. “You’re the one that’s actually cosplaying a race that you aren’t,” she said. “You’re desperate for Black Americans to pick up your tracks because you abandoned the audience of a lot of people who were listening to your music.”