“I’m super excited to be here, I was trying to figure out how I was gonna top the publicity of yours and Kanye’s interview, so I decided I was gonna walk in here and just pee on the floor and leave.”

So kicks off part one of a four part interview on BBC Radio 1’s Zane Lowe and Eminem. Sharing his sense of humour before getting serious, Eminem discusses burying hatchets and moving forward with The Marshall Mathers LP 2. With pressure to resurrect Stan from fans, his mind was on how to appease himself as well as others:

“I had heard a lot of chatter around the time of the Recovery record that I should do ‘Stan 2. All I kept thinking was, well Stan’s dead. He died in the story. So in the back of the mind I kind of had an idea of who could be left in the story. But I had to get the right beat.”

Not holding any cards to his chest, Eminem also reveals reservations about working with his idol Rick Rubin, as well as his motivations and processes behind the writing and recording;

“All my albums I think for the most part pretty much tell where I’m at. There’s a lot of reflecting and things like that back on everything that was happening during that time. It’s kind of like me reflecting on it and getting to the point where I’m with it now.”

Mica Nantes