Music to be Murdered By: Side B

12.14.20

Music to be Murdered By Side B 12.18.20 (unconfirmed)

Deluxe albums have been the wave this year in hip-hop, and if there is any true student to the game, it has to be Eminem. Throughout each and every interview where he is able to talk about his craft, he explains that he is always listening to what is new and what is going on in the game, and does his best to master it himself. So, rumors that he will be releasing a Murder to be Murdered By: Side B does not come as a huge surprise, however, the rumors are currently just Stans pulling information together, with no real confirmation.

These rumors spread as an album cover and tracklist for a Murder to be Murdered By: Side B have been spread across the internet. The album cover itself is very believable. As many Deluxe album covers look in the past, the cover is quite similar, with an inverted color way. The original had a red background, with Eminem in a suit holding a shovel. Now, the background is a dark gray, while Eminem wears the same suit, with a black crow on his shoulder, rather than the shovel. This becomes even more believable when you pick up certain things that could allude to storytelling. The initial album ends with Alfred Hitchcock's quote:

"This concludes our danse macabre
Portions of the proceeding were recorded
As for the rest of it, I'm very much afraid it was all in your mind
I don't intend to indulge in any post-mortem
If you haven't been murdered, I can only say
Better luck next time
If you have been, good night wherever you are"

First, this could just be something super creepy that Eminem liked for the vibe of his album. But, we also know that he is much smarter than that, so could be using subtle hints that only the Stans would be able to figure out, that there is something new coming. “Portions of the proceeding were recorded” - so, there has to be more available, right? “If you haven’t been murdered, I can only say better luck next time” So, there will be a next time, right? Eminem dropping the shovel and now being in the dark with a black crow, can allude to the job that he was working on in the first, is now complete. This project has the potential to be even crazier than the first.

However, we also must not forget that fake album artwork has been released previously, and that the Stans will hold onto everything they can, praying for new Eminem music. Just a few months back, it was the 20th anniversary of Shady Records. An artist had leaked a number of album artwork pieces that he had designed for Eminem, which never was brought to shelves. Many fans, and artists on the label, had thought there was going to be a Shady XX album, such as Shady XV for the fifteenth anniversary. There was no album in the works, just a bulk package of previous works, that in the end became scrapped due to timing. The moral of this is, we cannot believe anything that appears on the internet, until it is confirmed. Especially where there are so many people out there that are obsessed with this man, and just causing a commotion in general.

Next up, the tracklist. This Side B is a true Side B, and not just any deluxe that throws on a couple additional songs to the project. This tracklist includes twelve new tracks, with seven features, an intro and an outro. The list has a potential to be another entire project, if it is all true. However, there are some questionable things about this tracklist.

Track two includes features from Royce Da 5’9 and Cordae. Now, when this project first came out, I wrote a review on this page, and I said that Cordae was the one feature that this project was missing. He had numerous new kids on the project, like Juice WRLD and Young MA, but if he had Cordae on the project, that would be legendary. He was already in the booth with Dr. Dre, previously, so it would make sense for the two to work together at some point, and would be really cool to see. I think their styles and lyricism would be insane together, Royce is just the cherry on top. However, just about a week or two ago, Royce did an interview discussing his Grammy nomination for his album, The Allegory. During the interview, he mentioned that Cordae was actually supposed to be on one of his tracks, but his label would not clear it because they “wanted to keep him young.” Now, if they would not allow for Cordae to be cleared working with Royce then, and pulling the age card, I am not sure what the difference would be here, especially now that you have two older names in the industry. It would be completely legendary in my eyes, but I understand the thought as well. Kind of.

Next up, we have the White Gold feature. White Gold was on the original album, on a feature with Royce. It was a bit of a shock, since he is not a huge name in the industry, but the song went off quite well. So, not surprising that if this is a real tracklist that White Gold would once again make the cut, but he is actually denying this list to be true. To multiple posts of the tracklist on Twitter, White Gold has responded “Fake.” Additionally, he has been saying he has never heard of a song called “Demons and Zeus.” So, according to White Gold, this is not true. But, if you are holding onto any sense of hope, let me just say this. Eminem has been known to play with verses and put them in different places where he sees fits. For example, you remember when 2 Chainz was left off of Chloraseptic until the remix. Perhaps White Gold just does not know the name of the song, or if his verse was used somewhere else, and the label just hadn’t finalized the final approvals prior to the image leaking.

The Bon Iver feature is a bit odd to me, but Em has been known to shock us before. Bon Iver has been promoting the new Taylor Swift album which he had worked on, so no current clues from him on way or the other on if this tracklist looks real. The Boogie feature gets me excited, as I have just been waiting for this, I think it will be amazing, and I think Boogie deserves it. After not dropping anything in a while, to dropping last Friday, and having Eminem promote it on his channel, it makes sense that they would follow up with a track together. Hopefully.

While some are denying it, it seems like there is one that is giving us a sense of hope. Phoebe Bridgers is an Indie Rock female artist from LA. In a since deleted tweet, she tweeted at Eminem saying “are we ready @eminem?” It seems like she knew something was coming. This tweet was shared recently after Phoebe had dropped a song with Kid Cudi. It seems like the Indie artist is spreading her wings and making her way to the hip-hop crowd, which Eminem has been doing in vice versa, recently as well. He had a song with Kid Cudi earlier this year, so he could have heard what she did with Cudi, and wanted her to join him, as well.

Music to be Murdered By: Side B Tracklist (unconfirmed)

Finally, King Crook from Slaughterhouse stepped in to give his take on the tracklist. As you can see above, there are four logos on the top of the tracklist, whom are all music agencies tied to Eminem. In some version of the tracklist, there is an additional logo on the bottom right hand corner. This logo, is King Crook’s digital company. He responded to this tracklist to say, that he can not confirm anything that has to do with this paper.

It definitely seems like someone might have photoshopped on this logo to try to get some information out of King Crook. He is probably the most versed on social media, as his podcast has been growing in popularity. He is constantly talking to his followers and asking them their opinions about different things going on in hip-hop daily. I think if you are a real Stan, you might pull something like this, hoping that a crazy scenario such as a new Eminem topic, would bring some sort of conversation out of King Crook. However, he remains quiet for now.

Looks like we will have to wait til Friday to find out if this album exists or not.