Eminem Talks About His Voice & Flow Changing On "MMLP 2"

As Eminem’s career has progressed, and incidentally, as he’s matured, one of the criticisms often geared towards him is that his voice and his flow have changed. Of course, it’s perhaps not that surprising of a statement, given that voices do change over time, especially when one uses their voice as a living, however, in the latter half of his career, many fans have found that Em’s trademark pitched vocals and seemingly easy flow has transformed into something a bit harder, a bit more difficult to digest, and a bit more aggressive. 

This sort of criticism perhaps reached its peak when Eminem dropped MMLP 2 in 2013, his first project since 2010’s Recovery, and thus one that had a ton of anticipation surrounding (not only because of its name). During his new podcast interview with manager Paul Rosenberg for Paul Pod: Curtain Call 2, the two discuss Eminem linking up with Rick Rubin to create MMLP 2, and Eminem touches on the feedback surrounding his vocals and delivery, revealing the issue at the center of it for the first time.

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

As they get into a discussion of the album, Eminem reveals, “Something you said was that ‘it wasn’t digestible’ or something like that. So I let off the gas. Some people like when I rap fast, some people don’t. So I was trying to make songs that were more digestible, but I’m also always worried that if I just do that, people are like ‘oh he fell off, he can’t rap anymore’.”

Paul replies, “At the time, I probably felt like based upon feedback, experience etc, that you were doing something too much, and I don’t remember exactly what it was,” before Eminem elaborates on the issue.