coup de grâce - /ˌko͞o də ˈɡräs/
a final blow or shot given to kill a wounded person or animal.
noun
The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) flows like a single plot following an epic battle between Eminem and Slim Shady, with Em walking up the stage one last time.
As Eminem experiences and watches the current state of society, his mixed feelings, hatred, and overall resistance to contemporary America (or ‘Murica, as he says) allows Slim Shady to be reborn inside his mind like a small voice that keeps growing and growing throughout the album.
The Death Revival of Slim Shady
In classic Slim Shady fashion, most of the lyrics in the first songs feature a lot of disses, calling out multiple rappers, celebrities, and acquaintances from his life, making many references to previous people and minorities he had spoken about, as well as a lot of references and sensations from old songs.
An interesting aspect of this revived Slim Shady is the ability to both diss himself as Slim Shady and also be dissed by Eminem as a clear show of conflict between thoughts, alter ego, self-consciousness, and satire; which is somewhat new to his game.
As the album progresses, Slim Shady becomes powerful enough, fueled by his evilness and antagonism to the world’s new world™️, that he starts to become a detached entity that Eminem acknowledges he must fight both internally and externally to kill.
Before the next section, some observations I want to address (🤓👆🏻):
- I LOVE that the “news journal” skits are back.
- Some songs clearly imitate old songs in a contemporary fashion.
Murder Suicide
Eventually, we reach a point in the album where Em finally confronts Slim Shady in “Guilty Conscience 2.” After a “My Darling” with Slim Shady, Eminem finally, artistically speaking, kills Slim Shady for the better, citing all the people with whom he had beef and also the consequences of his alter ego over the years. And with that, the symbolic part 2 of the album begins.
Family & Ken Kaniff
With Slim gone, even though some songs after “Guilty Conscience 2” still have the casual rap diss (but this time as Eminem himself), Eminem turns his attention to his family and vocalizes his feelings to people whose lives matter to him. He opens up about being afraid of not being here anymore and leaving with a sensation of failing those he loves, with a special shout out to both “Temporary”, another collaboration with Skylar Grey (making it the ninth time), and “Somebody Save Me”.
Both these songs are explicitly targeted to Eminem’s children (especially Hailie) and Alaina (whom he has always treated like one) and loved ones. They bring back some of the emotional, raw sentiment Eminem speaks through in songs like “Mockingbird” and “Hailie’s Song”, with “Somebody Save Me” ending the album with a song about an alternate reality where Eminem never got sober and his addiction killed him, making both Slim and Em dead, symbolizing the end of his career, but also beautifully expressing his feelings and goodbyes to those he cares about.
With all that this album symbolizes and the massive content filled in each line, this album becomes an instant Eminem masterpiece, with some of his most well-made lyrics and underlying meanings of all time.