Fans Give Some Thoughts About Eminem’s New Album! – Eminem Harnesses AI to Resurrect Slim Shady’s Iconic Voice and Image for ‘The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)’

A young Slim appears in the  music video for the album’s first single “Houdini.”

Eminem has been on a farewell tour of sorts for his alter ego Slim Shady.

But Slim has made a comeback before his death, 25 years since we were first introduced to him in Em’s music video for “My Name Is,” the debut single from 1999’s The Slim Shady LP.

In the visual for The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) album cut, “Houdini,” Slim marked his return, appearing, seemingly in the flesh, alongside Marshall Mathers. In the video, a young Shady travels in time to the present day, and he and Em go back-to-back, lifting lyrics from the 2002 song “Without Me Part 2.”

“Guess who’s back, back again?/Shady’s back, tell a friend,” Eminem raps in the intro.

But how did he manage to bring Slim Shady—both in voice and in image for The Death of Slim Shady—back to life over 20 years later? According to Billboard’s Damien Scott, the Detroit native used AI and the company Metaphysic.

Scott writes that the artificial intelligence company, which was founded in 2021, “offers a suite of tools that allows artists to create and manage digital versions of themselves that they can then manipulate and use for their own projects or license out to third parties for movies, tv shows, or other commercial projects.”

Metaphysic Pro is tailored to creatives and artists to help them craft a “portfolio of high-quality data assets used to create your AI, voice, and performance,” per the website. That offering seemed to fit the bill for Eminem, who can use the platform to both protect his image and likeness, and deploy it for his own creative pursuits.

Scott points out that artists can “protect [their] image and likeness against the pending artificial intelligence onslaught,” while registering “with Metaphysic to build a database of [their] face, voice, and performance videos from any point in [their] career.” Metaphysic will also help you maintain control over your AI self through paper licensing deals.

Last week, Complex put together pop-up shops in L.A. and London for The Death of Slim Shady. See some coverage below.