Half a year ago, Eminem took to the airwaves to complain that he was jealous of his own success. "Nobody wants to hear Marshall no more; they want Shady, I'm chopped liver," he said, and he was right -- "Without Me" was yet another star vehicle for his prankish alter ego, Slim Shady. He called the accompanying album The Eminem Show, as if he were determined to leave Slim Shady behind, but it didn't work. The success of "Without Me" only increased Slim Shady's popularity, and it was hard to listen to the rest of the album without missing Shady's exuberance.
That's why Eminem's latest disc, the soundtrack to the movie 8 Mile, is such a big deal. Eminem contributes three new songs, all self-produced, which happen to be three of the most ferocious hip-hop songs ever recorded. In less than fifteen minutes, these three performances do what the whole of The Eminem Show could not: They make you forget Slim Shady ever existed.

So won't the real Slim Shady please sit down? He's been replaced by Jimmy "Rabbit" Smith, an aspiring rapper doing his best to turn anxiety into bravado. "Lose Yourself" could be a hip-hop "Eye of the Tiger," if only it weren't so paranoid. A chugging guitar builds anticipation for a triumphant climax that never quite comes. Instead, there's a frantic description of every performer's worst nightmare: "He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out/He's choking, how? Everybody's joking now/The clock's run out, time's up, over - blaow!/Snap back to reality - oh, there goes gravity."

And here comes gravitas. In his own perverse way, Eminem is one of the most earnest pop stars around, and the character of Rabbit gives him a chance to forgo sarcasm and expound on the thing he's most passionate about: rapping. On 8 Mile, he puts on an astonishing display of lyrical skill, using at least three distinct rhythmic patterns, often switching midsentence. And the album's last song, "Rabbit Run," doesn't even bother with a chorus -- it's a three-minute rant. Rabbit is tormented by writer's block, and just when he thinks he's got something, there's the sound of paper being crunched up into a ball: "Nope, it's not good enough." He keeps going until he's ready to explode -- "If I gotta scream till I have half a lung/If I have half a chance, I'll grab it/Rabbit, run" -- and then the beat cuts out and the album is over.

Like most rappers, Eminem is ambivalent about the idea of acting, because he always wants to insist that he's telling his own story, not merely reciting some Hollywood script. "Lose Yourself" begins in the third person, then switches to the first person. "It's no movie/There's no Mekhi Phifer, this is my life," he says, and for the rest of the album, he raps as Rabbit, surveying a semi-fictional world of trailer parks and family strife.

The other rappers on the soundtrack mimic Eminem's spartan approach, which can be tiresome -- Nas, Xzibit and Rakim all huff and puff without really getting anywhere. If you're going to forgo catchy choruses, it helps to have charisma. That's why Jay-Z rises above the crowd, sneering at enemies turned cheerleaders: "Got their Jay-Z pompoms and their Hova uniforms." And that's why 50 Cent, the mush-mouth rapper newly signed to Eminem's label, emerges as the disc's second-biggest star. "Used to listen to Lauryn Hill and tap my feet," he raps. "Then the bitch put out a CD/It didn't have no beats."

Some copies of the soundtrack are packaged with a bonus disc, a Shady/Aftermath Records sampler that includes an Eminem B side, "Stimulate." The track finds Eminem bedeviled by his old nemesis: "I try to stimulate but kids emulate/And mimic every move you make, 'Slim, you great!' " A clever rhyme, and a familiar complaint. But he's got a new doppelganger now. So don't be surprised if Eminem spends the next few years trying to outrun Rabbit, instead.

by Kelefa Sanneh, Rolling Stone