Eminem has used a new song to apologize to Rihanna for “siding” with her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown, who assaulted her in 2009.
As we all know, Eminem loves surprises. Remember when, many moons ago, he suddenly performed at the Oscars for reasons even he didn’t understand? What a crazy fox, we thought. Well, now Eminem has dropped a whole surprise album. And as far as we can tell, it is not a Christmas album, but it does get into the holiday spirit (?) of taking stock of one’s past wrongs and atoning for them.
Eminem raps on his track Zeus: “And wholeheartedly apologies Rihanna for that song that leaked/I’m sorry, Rih, it wasn’t meant to cause you grief.”
He was referring to a decade-old song that leaked in 2019, on which he said, “of course I side with Chris Brown.”
Zeus appears on Eminem’s surprise album Music to be Murdered By Side B.
The album, which accompanies January’s Music to be Murdered By, was released on Friday.
At the time the track leaked last year, Eminem’s spokesperson said: “This is a leak of something that’s over ten years old. After Eminem recorded it, he scrapped it, and rewrote it.”
On his new track, he admitted the original lyric “was wrong of me.”
Brown pleaded guilty to the assault in 2009 and received five years of probation and a community service order.
Eminem and Rihanna have collaborated several times, including on 2010’s US number-one single Love the Way You Lie, as well as Numb on her 2012 album Unapologetic and The Monster from The Marshall Mathers LP 2 in 2013.
The rapper’s new album features collaborations with Dr. Dre, Ty Dolla $ign, J Premier, and Skylar Gray.
Along with apologizing to Rihanna and calling out both Mariah Carey and Snoop Dogg on his new album, Eminem also references Billie Eilish, much to fans’ surprise. In the song “Alfred’s Theme,” Eminem raps, “Bly I’m just fulfilling my wish of killing rhymes / Which is really and silly, but I’m really like this / I’m giving nightmares to Billie Eilish.”
As it turns out, there’s a reason why Eminem rapped those particular lyrics. Back in 2019, Eilish told Noisey that she was scared of the rapper. When asked to choose between Eminem and Childish Gambino, she had to go with Donald Glover.” I have to say, Childish Gambino, one billion percent,” she said. “I was scared of Eminem my whole life. Terrified. That dude freaked the fuck out of me. Oh my god. But you know, Childish Gambino created me, dude. I don’t even know, that’s crazy – you can’t even put him in a list of other people.”