Eminem, With Rihanna in Tow, Shows Off His 'Monster' in New Video

I won’t lie, I’ve been bored with Eminem since the “The Eminem Show” album but this guy does have an uncanny ability to make hip-hop power ballads — remember “Love The Way You Lie” with the Hobbit and Megan Fox? How disturbing was that video and its popularity? Still, even I was surprised by how much I actually like his new video for “The Monster.”

In the clip, Em looks back at his career high points on a descending elevator ride, passing himself in the straight-jacket’ed “My Name Is”, hard rapping in “Lose Yourself”, angry and falling from the sky in “The Way I Am”, and burying the anti-LGBTQ hatchet with Elton John at the 2001 Grammy’s. The clip ends with the MC walking toward a heavily chained wooden cage, crunching innumerable pill bottles under his feet which are strewn on the ground. Peering into the crate, which is flanked by two armed guards pointing their guns at the contents, Eminem sees himself, crazed and probably high. The MC’s Mr. Hyde throws a balled up paper at Eminem and the MC walks away, kind of sad and kind of resigned to his life with this other guy in the cage.

Ultimately, Eminem’s “The Monster” made me sad for the course of his life in a way that Kanye West’s rants about the struggle of fame never do. Some people really do just want to rap and go home, you know?