On the heels of “Survival,” from the soundtrack to the first-person shooter game Call of Duty: Ghosts, Eminem has dropped “Berzerk,” the lead single from this forthcoming eighth studio album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2, the release of which he announced on Sunday with a teaser bearing the unmistakable acronym “MMLP2.” Executive-produced by Dr. Dre, Em’s mentor and longtime collaborator, and Rick Rubin, who was most recently at the helm of Kanye West’s Yeezus, the new album is a sequel to Slim Shady’s landmark 2000 release. The guitar-driven “Berzerk” samples Billy Squier’s 1981 hit “The Stroke” and finds Mathers paying homage to his white-rapper forefathers, affecting a screechy, Ad-Rock-style yelp atop a loop reminiscent of the Beastie Boys’ “Paul Revere” (produced by Rubin, incidentally): “Let’s take it back to straight hip-hop and start it from scratch.” The “vintage Slim” track also samples the Beasties’ “(You Gotta Fight) For Your Right (To Party)” for good measure.
The Marshall Mathers LP 2, the follow-up to 2010’s Recovery, hits stores November 5th on Interscope.
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