Eminem: Sobriety Lead to Songwriting

Eminem had to kick his pill habit in order to write The Relapse.

Eminem, who’s latest album is titled The Relapse, speaks candidly to the New York Times about his addiction to prescription drugs, and how it stifled his creativity and sent him into seclusion. The multi-platinum rapper says he now thinks the verse he recorded for T.I.’s 2007 track “Touch Down” is “horrible.” But, after putting himself through rehab and spending the last year sober, the man known as Marshall Mathers has been able to reclaim his over-the-top verbal abilities.

Here’s an excerpt:

Last year, just two months out of rehab, Eminem met Dr. Dre met in Orlando, Fla., to try recording. Eminem had been doing what he called “mind exercises” to get himself writing. “I’d stack a bunch of words and just go down the line and try to fill in the blanks and make sense out of them,” he said. “For three or four years I couldn’t do it any more.”When he was sober, he said, “the wheels started turning again.” Working in Orlando and then in Detroit, Eminem and Dr. Dre recorded hundreds of tracks and finished enough new songs for three albums. They have culled them to two; Eminem plans to release “Relapse 2” before the end of this year. “The deeper I got into my addiction, the tighter the lid got on my creativity,” he said. “When I got sober the lid just came off. In seven months I accomplished more than I could accomplish in three or four years doing drugs.”

Read the rest of the article here.