Slim Shady is back.

And anyone who saw the BET Hip Hop Awards last weekend can attest to it. Eminem may have claimed to have killed off his twisted and crazy alter ego, but he was clearly back in full force at the last Cypher (and even though Em anchors probably the greatest cypher BET has yet to assemble, Mos takes it).

And about time. As one of my friends commented, “It was good to see slim shady re emerge. This Marshall mathers guy was getting old.” Em’s last few releases pre-Relapse were quite weak. He was still and will always be one of the most gifted technical Emcees ever, but that mean streak was missing. Mean streak doesn’t even describe it really. Psychotic homicidal streak or some shit, is more like it.

Relapse was almost a return to form. Almost. Amidst all of the press around Eminem’s near death experience at the hands of a methadone overdose and his subsequent sobriety, Relapse emerged as Eminem’s most tortured work. It’s personal, introspective, honest, and brutal (particularly my favorite track Deja Vu, which convinced me Eminem should no longer have custody of his children, seriously).

But it wasn’t that good. It was too dark.

Gone is Em’s distinctive sadistic humor, ridiculous pop culture references, and social satire. There are flashes of it, “Surfing every channel, until I find Hannah Monatana, then I reach for the Aloe and Lanolin, bust all over the wall pannelin’,” But for the most part he seemed to attempt to cram all of them into the album’s best known single We Made You. Most of the album Em wallows in his problems instead of approaching them with his usual comically ironic distance. Em used to be fun to listen to despite how fucked up everything was. Relapse is just depressing (And then there’s the Triumph the Insult Comic Dog voice he’s still using).

And I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but Eminem in his recent public appearances, looks miserable. Go back and watch the Cypher. Em’s killing it, but he is not enjoying it. If anyone saw his skits with Tracy Morgan on the VMA’s, Em is funny but he is not having fun. His Tim Westwood freestyle session, dope, but he’s not happy. The Forever video from Drake, murders it, but there’s no joy. Even on Jimmy Kimmel, in his interview or the remote he shoots with Jimmy, He Looks Miserable.

But why? Why isn’t Em as fun as he used to be?

The obvious answer is sobriety, and it’s what all the press focused on. Detailed articles about Em’s overdose and rampant drug use were cover stories in XXL, VIBE, and even Entertainment Weekly. And that was the better story. “Rapper overcomes drug abuse, to get sober and record most personal album yet.” It’s heartwarming, triumphant, and very American. But Em says Relapse is the first time he’s recorded sober in seven years. That would mean that at least one of his first two albums, the Slim Shady LP or the incredible Marshall Mathers LP was recorded (relatively) sober. So although it’s a nice story, I don’t think that’s it.

To find the answer I want to turn to Track 3 on Relapse, a little ditty called Insane. Here’s the song, but don’t listen yet.

Here’s an excerpt from Insane:

I want you to feel like my stepfather felt me (uhmm...)
Fuck a little puppy, kick the puppy while he's yelpin
(Shady, what the fuck you saying?) I don't know - HELP ME!
What the fuck's happening?! I think I'm fucking MELLLTING!
"Marshall, I just love you boy, I care about your well-being"
NO, dad I said NO! I don't need no help-ing

Now I know what you’re saying. This is Eminem, being the Eminem of old. Makin’ up some crazy fucked up shit, about something people shouldn’t joke about, and actually making it kinda funny. It’s not like he was actually molested by his stepfather or fucked a dog.

Well, no. I don’t think he fucked a dog. And I think this would be kinda funny, if it wasn’t the third verse of the song. And if the first verse wasn’t this:

I was born with a dick in my brain, yeah fucked in the head
My stepfather said that I sucked in the bed
'til one night he snucked in and said
"We're goin out back, I want my dick sucked in the shed"
Can we just play with Teddy Ruxpin instead?
"After I fuck you in the butt, get some head,
 bust a nut, get some rest"
The next day, my mother said,
"I don't know what the fuck's UP with this kid!
The bastard won't even eat nothing, he's scared
He just hung himself in the bedroom, he's dead!"
"Debbie, don't let that fucker get you upset
 Go in there, stick a fuckin cigarette to his neck
 I bet you he's fakin it, I bet you
 I bet he probably just wants to see how upset you would get
 I'll go handle this, of course, unless you object"
"Aw, go fuck his brains out if any's left in his head"

Now listen to the song. I’ll wait… yeah. It’s not funny, now is it. ‘Cause now you kinda think he WAS actually molested by his stepfather.

But it is Em, and he does make shit up. Even in that Jimmy Kimmel clip he says he makes stuff up (he also says he draws on terrible things that happened to him as a child). And clearly he’s joking, what’s that line about hanging himself in the bedroom, of course that didn’t happen! No, it didn’t. It’s actually the only line that doesn’t seem to ring true. So it got me thinking. Here’s a line from the first verse of Eminem’s first single, My Name Is. Some of you may have missed it because it was completely replaced from on the edited version.

Well since age twelve, I've felt like I'm someone else
Cause I hung my original self from the top bunk with a belt

It’s the same shit as the line from Insane. Em’s been talking about his stepfather touching him, since his first record under Dre. We just never knew what he was talking about. Honestly, I think this is the event that birthed Slim Shady. That original self, Em speaks of hanging in two songs almost a decade apart, was Marshall Mathers, and at age twelve the persona that survived the childhood trauma of being molested by his stepfather was Slim Shady.

I know, I know, I’m taking this too far. I’m using pop psychology, double consciousnesses, I saw Primal Fear the other day, maybe the whole birth of Slim Shady thing was too much. But here’s the thing. It makes too much sense.

Eminem has always been at the forefront of accusations towards Hip Hop’s homophobic nature. And the attacks have been deserved. The funny thing is, I can’t think of another straight MC who has so many gay references in his work. For example, from If I Get Locked Up Tonight:

I'm sick enough to fuck a man in his face but I won't
 cause you'll probably wanna stand in his place
 So put a sock in it, with your fake-ass Tupac image
 You faggots ain't tough, you just get drunk and become talkative

In the same four bars Em claims that he would perform a gay act, and then calls others gay for wanting it, and then uses the term faggots. It’s confusing as shit, and runs throughout a lot of his music. A traumatic homosexual experience could explain some of that.

And then there’s this miserableness, all of a sudden. Here’s an interview of him in 2002. Compare it to the recent stuff. His demeanor is very different. Maybe, being completely sober for the first time, Em is finally having to deal with this stuff on the day to day. And it’s not going well. If you’ve been covering up some shit like this with substances for 20+ years, I’m sure when you’re off them, you’re not gonna be the happiest person. And it definitely becomes hard to find the humor in it all. I think Relapse and Eminem’s recent public disposition is the result of him finally having to deal with child abuse.

And whether you fully believe what I’m saying or not, it must be clear that there’s SOMETHING to this.

So why hasn’t this been in any of the press? You would think this would be a big deal. And, I mean he put it out there by writing a song about it. But NONE of the above articles even mention the song. At all. I don’t know. Maybe it just wasn’t as nice of a story as the overdose. Maybe his management thought it’d hurt his image. Maybe he wouldn’t speak about it in person. Maybe everyone thought he was joking. Maybe he was joking and I’ve blown this totally out of proportion. It’s probably a little of everything.

Honestly, I’m just happy that Em is back. The game needs him, depressed, happy, intoxicated, sober, he’s still one of the all-time greats. Supposedly before the end of the year, we’ll be getting Relapse 2. Although I hope we get some more of the humor and fun of Em back, I don’t think we will. On the topic of the new record, Em has this to say:

“The last record I made, I think I was concentrating more on spitting. On this album, I feel like there’s some of that, but I went back to songs with [feelings] to them as opposed to just rap records.”

This album’s gonna be depressing as shit. But it’ll still be dope. And if it’s as soul-searching as Shady’s suggesting it is, this whole molestation thing might get the press it deserves. If, of course, I’m right. Which, you know, I am.

‘Til then I’ll be bumping Em’s new cut Taking My Ball off the DJ Hero Soundtrack. ‘Cause goddamn, when he does turn it on…

…he’s still got it.