Eminem interview.

It has been five years since Eminem last emerged from his Detroit compound with a new studio album, Encore. By then, the rapper born Marshall Mathers III had established himself as the most significant US artist of his generation – driving and reflecting fierce debate in George Bush's America on racial and sexual politics, violence, dysfunctional families and the pitfalls of celebrity. He survived a traumatic childhood in the racially divided lower-class suburbs of Detroit to win nine Grammy awards and an Oscar (for best song, from the film 8 Mile, the loosely autobiographical tale in which he starred); but even as critics and commentators belatedly sought to embrace him, the United States Secret Service found itself considering an investigation into the suggestion – on the 2003 track We As Americans – that he had threatened the president's life.

1. Eminem
2. Relapse
3. Interscope
4. 

1. 2009

No one could be insensate to Eminem, or Slim Shady, those aliases born of a hip-hop tradition to which he had always been true. Shady righted the wrongs the rapper had suff ered in life and ridiculed the insincerity and injustice he saw all around him. But somewhere along the way it seems as if holding a mirror up to his culture caused the real Marshall Mathers to lose his way. The stuff of his life – from his acrimonious relationships with his mother Debbie and his now twice divorced ex-wife Kimberley Anne Scott (mother to his daughter Hailie ) – fuelled lyrics that were often painfully detailed and explicit. But following a greatest hits collection – with the ominous title Curtain Call – in December 2005, Eminem disappeared from the limelight.

In the years since there have been endless rumours: Eminem was struggling with drug addiction and weight gain; Eminem had put down the microphone for good; Eminem intended to focus on acting; Eminem was too paranoid to leave his home. The truth is mixed.

In his time away from the world at large, the 36-year-old star struggled with an addiction to painkillers and sleeping pills that had been with him for years. He gained weight, he grew depressed and he lost the creative spark that had always driven him on. The murder of his best friend and partner in rap, Proof – real name DeShaun Dupree Holton – on 8 Mile Road in Detroit in April 2006 did nothing to help his downward spiral.

I first heard Eminem in 1998, when he was an unsigned rapper freestyling on a Los Angeles radio show and I was on staff at Rolling Stone magazine. I kept my eye out for him and a year later, when he signed to Interscope records and was working with Dr Dre – one of the most infl uential hiphop producers in history – I was dispatched to interview him for a 250-word piece on the "novelty" video for his surprise hit My Name Is. The Eminem I met then was on fi re, with wit, with creativity and with a nothing-to-lose momentum that was carrying him further to the top day-today than I think even he reali sed. But as time went on, and over the course of several in-depth interviews that saw me finally writing a book called Whatever You Say I Am (Transworld) about his rise to fame and his cultural significance, I saw the Eminem I knew change.

It wasn't just the stress of success and the complicated life he chronicled so well in rhyme. In our last interview, circa the album The Eminem Show in 2002, he had grown very visibly reserved; it was a trend that seemed to continue in his subsequent dealings with the press and public at large. Soon after, on Encore, his rhymes fell short of his acerbic, acrobatic best. It sounded from the outside as if the wordsmith who was never without a pen and a pad had grown bored of his craft.

In truth, he had. He was midway through a spiral that he has finally turned around: he is now a year sober and ready to re-emerge with the feverishly awaited Relapse. His voice is clear, his speech is focused and for the first time in too long – to my ears at least – Eminem sounds like the man he used to be. The outward signs are positive: rather than remaining in his home studio to record, Eminem has built a new facility in Detroit, full of his favourite vintage arcade games, where he now prefers to work. And though he has not decided if he's going to tour this album or Relapse II, a second studio release tentatively scheduled for later this year, he has decided that he's ready to keep writing and rapping rather than working behind the production desk for other artists. It sounds as if Eminem has realised, once again, that rap saved his life and that no one should turn their back on what they're born to do – especially if they're given the chance to do it their way.

Eminem: Anthony, long time, no speak.
AB: Marshall Mathers, it is good to hear your voice.
Eminem: Yeah, I'm doing that "I am back" thing a little bit. Uh… cool. Is that all you need for this article?
AB: Definitely. Interview over. Thanks! Seriously, though, what made you want to put yourself out there again?
Eminem: Honestly, I never really put the mic down. The problem was, as I'm going to be explaining over and over again for a while, is that I had a pretty bad drug problem. I was messing with Valium, Vicodin, Ambien and anything to [help me to] sleep. Basically I'd take Vicodin to get me through my day.
AB: You went to rehab for the first time in August 2005 when you cancelled the European leg of the Anger Management 3 tour, which was your first in three years.
Eminem: Right. And when I went to rehab that time I wasn't ready to go. So when I came out I relapsed pretty much right away, within a week. I was still writing at that time and trying to do my producer thing. I was sitting in rehab reflecting for the first time in a while. I felt like I needed to pull back from the spotlight because it was getting out of control. I mean, you could blame my drug problem on genetics, you could blame it on my career and the way it took off, or you could just blame it on me.
AB: Which did you blame it on?
Eminem: I think more than anything it had to do with me. You know, my career certainly played a hand in my drug use and how bad it actually got, but it was also my own doing.
AB: It sounds like you got a bit of perspective that first time in rehab, even if it ultimately didn't work. What changes did you make?
Eminem: I felt like I had to pull back from the spotlight. I thought I'd try to produce records and work with artists from my label and shit like that. I thought this would be my way to pull back a little bit and not be the front man.