Eminem had to learn to rap again after near-fatal drug overdose in 2007

NME | Music, Film, TV, Gaming & Pop Culture News

Eminem has opened up on how he had to learn to rap again after suffering a near-fatal drug overdose.

The rap icon suffered a near-fatal prescription pill overdose in 2007, which prompted him to successfully seek help. He celebrated 12 years of sobriety last year.

But in a new interview to promote ‘Music To Be Murdered By: Side B’, Eminem explained that the overdose meant he was forced to relearn a number of skills – including rapping itself.

While discussing the track ‘Zeus’ — which sees him apologising to Rihanna for a leaked 2009 verse in which he references her notorious assault by Chris Brown – he explained that the leaked verse emerged during the period when he was honing his rapping skills once more.

“Like the rhyme schemes didn’t even sound like familiar to me,” Eminem said. “So I was caught off-guard too. I was like, ‘What the fuck, I said that?’ I said it and I was wrong for saying that [line about Rihanna]. It was fucking stupid.

“You know, a lot of times, especially with the ‘Relapse’ record, when I first started learning how to rap again, because of the drug situation that I went through and having to relearn a lot of things, that was one of those things that it was like: ‘Well, if it rhyme, say it.'”

Eminem initially wrote the offending verse for his 2009 album ‘Relapse’ but the song it featured in was scrapped, although it eventually leaked online in November 2019.

He rapped: “Of course I side with Chris Brown / I’d beat a bitch down too / If she gave my dick an itch, now.”

Apologising to Rihanna in the interview, he added: “I should have thought better of it. You know, it was one of those things that, like I said, I don’t even remember recording, but record a lot of songs. So it was like, it’s, it’s tough sometimes.”

Eminem recently delivered a humble estimation of his own legacy – admitting he doesn’t feel as influential as some of rap’s other icons.

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