Eminem apologizes for the hurt he has caused as a result of his often graphic and violent lyrics in his track Guts Over Fear.
The 51-year-old rapper, who most recently sung about dragging singer Iggy Azalea by his Humvee and raping her, reflects on his long-standing career and expresses a keen sense of remorse in the hit Guts Over Fear.
‘It just breaks my heart to look at all the pain I caused,’ he raps in the emotive single which is the first to be released off his album Shady XV.
‘It breaks my heart’: Eminem apologizes for hurt cause by his often graphic and violent song lyrics in his new track Guts Over Fear that reflects on his career
‘The pain spawns all the anger on, but it wasn’t until I put the pain in song, learned who to aim it on, that I made a spark,
Started to spit hard as s***, learned how to harness it while the reins were off… But the crazy part was soon as I stopped saying I gave a f*** haters started to appreciate my art.’
The accompanying video depicts the personal struggles and self doubt that have riddled Slim Shady’s almost two decades in the industry through an aspiring boxer.
Beginning with the sound of a heartbeat and a lone boxer preparing to enter the ring, it flashes back to suburban Michigan – Eminem’s hometown – and instead of training for his next fight, the character is scrubbing dishes in a local diner.
Heart-felt: The 51-year-old expresses his personal struggles and self doubt in the emotive track
Double edged sword: While he apologizes for causing pain he says his own rage is what inspires his songs and that without it he can’t create anything meaningful
He raps about his fear of becoming irrelevant and losing a hold on the anger that inspires his songs.
‘The media made me the equivalent of a modern-day Genghis Khan. Tried to argue, it was only entertainment, dog,’ he says of his controversial lyrics in earlier days.
‘But what am I gonna do when the rage is gone? And the lights go out in that trailer park,
‘And I’m frozen, cause there’s no more emotion for me to pull from, just a bunch of playful songs, that I make for fun.’
Australian singer-songwriter Sia provides the vocals for the chorus but doesn’t appear in the music video herself.
Instead, the camera-shy star is portrayed by America’s Next Top Model finalist Chantelle Brown-Young who suffers from Vitiligo, a condition that causes depigmentation in parts of the skin.