Guts Over Fear [feat. Sia]

Apart from being one of the best-selling artists in music history, Eminem is one of the greatest rappers of his generation. He's effortlessly fast, fluid, dexterous, and unpredictable, capable of pulling off long-form narratives or withering asides. And thanks to his mentor Dr. Dre, he's had music to match with thick, muscular loops evoking the terror and paranoia conjured by his lyrics. To be certain, a great deal of the controversy Eminem courted came through in how his violent fantasias, often directed at his mother or his wife, intertwined with flights of absurdity that appealed to listeners too young to absorb the psychodramas explored on his breakthrough albums The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP. Eminem's commercial peak came around the time of his 2002 album The Eminem Show (which went platinum 27 times over) and with his crossover onto the big screen that same year with 8 Mile, a film that earned him acclaim for his performance and an Oscar for the film's anthem, "Lose Yourself." Eminem's journey as a living rap legend included struggles with addiction, near-constant feuding with other artists, and a celebrity status that shifted as the years went on. Through all his various changes, however, he continued growing as an artist as well as consistently hitting high commercial marks. Though critics could be unkind to efforts like 2009's Relapse or 2017's Revival, fans made sure that each new album sold at least platinum numbers and topped the charts. Instead of recycling old ideas, the rapper experimented with new production approaches, faster flows, and increasingly complex multisyllabic wordplay on projects like 2020's Music to Be Murdered By and the 2024 concept album The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), in which he confronted and killed his alter ego.

Born Marshall Mathers in the Kansas City, Missouri suburb of St. Joseph, Eminem spent his childhood between Missouri and Michigan, settling in Detroit in his teens. At the age of 14, he began rapping with a high school friend, the two adopting the names "Manix" and "M&M," which soon morphed into Eminem. Under this name, Mathers entered battle rapping, a struggle dramatized in the fictionalized 8 Mile. Initially, the predominantly Black audience didn't embrace him, but soon his skills earned him a reputation, and he was recruited to join several rap groups. The first of these was the New Jacks, and after they disbanded, he joined Soul Intent, who released a single in 1995. This track also featured Proof, and the two rappers broke off on their own to form D-12, a six-member crew that functioned more as a Wu-Tang-styled collective than a regularly performing group.

As he was struggling to establish his career, Eminem and his girlfriend Kim had a daughter, Hailey, forcing him to spend less time rapping and more time providing for his family. He assembled his first album, Infinite, which received some underground attention in 1996, not all of it positive. After its release, Eminem developed his Slim Shady alter ego, a persona that freed him to dig deep into his dark id, something he needed as he faced a number of personal upheavals, beginning with a bad split with Kim, which led him to move in with his mother and increase his use of drugs and alcohol, capped off by an unsuccessful suicide attempt. All this sturm und drang was channeled into The Slim Shady EP, which is where he first demonstrated many of the quirks that became his trademark, including his twitchy, nasal rhyming and disturbingly violent imagery.

The Slim Shady EP opened many doors, the most notable being a contract with Interscope Records. After Eminem came in second at the 1997 Rap Olympics MC Battle in Los Angeles, Interscope head Jimmy Iovine sought him out, giving the EP to Dr. Dre, who proved eager to work with Eminem. They quickly cut Em's Interscope debut in the fall of 1998 -- during which time Marshall reconciled with Kim and married her -- and The Slim Shady LP appeared early in 1999, preceded by the single "My Name Is." Both were instant blockbusters and Eminem became a lightning rod for attention, earning praise and disdain for his violent, satirical fantasias.

He quickly followed The Slim Shady LP with The Marshall Mathers LP in the summer of 2000. By this point, there was little doubt that Eminem was one of the biggest stars in pop music: the album sold almost two million copies within the first two weeks of release, but Mathers felt compelled to tweak other celebrities, provoking pop stars in his lyrics, and Insane Clown Posse's entourage in person, providing endless fodder for the tabloids. This gossip blended with growing criticism about his violent and homophobic lyrics, and under this fire, he reunited his old crew, D-12, releasing an album in 2001, then touring with the group.

During this furor, he had his biggest hit in the form of the moody ballad "Stan." Performed at the Grammys as a duet with Elton John, thereby undercutting some accusations of homophobia, the song helped Eminem cross over to a middlebrow audience, setting the stage for the ultimate crossover of 2001's 8 Mile. Directed by Curtis Hanson, best known as the Oscar-nominated director of L.A. Confidential, the gritty drama fictionalized Eminem's pre-fame Detroit days and earned considerable praise, culminating in one of his biggest hits with the theme "Lose Yourself," which won Mathers an Oscar.

After all this, he retreated from the spotlight to record his third album, The Eminem Show. Preceded by the single "Without Me," it turned into another huge hit, albeit not quite as strong as its predecessor, and there were some criticisms suggesting that Eminem wasn't expanding his horizons much. Encore, released late in 2004, did reach into more mature territory, notably on the anti-George W. Bush "Mosh," but most of the controversy generated by the album was for behind-the-scenes events: a bus crash followed by canceled dates and a stint in rehab. Rumors of retirement flew, and the 2005 appearance of Curtain Call: The Hits did nothing to dampen them, nor did the turmoil of 2006, a year that saw Mathers remarrying and divorcing Kim within a matter of four months, as well as the shooting death of Proof at a Detroit club.

During all this, Em did some minor studio work, but he soon dropped off the radar completely, retreating to his Detroit home. He popped up here and there, most notably debuting the hip-hop channel Shade 45 for Sirius Satellite Radio in September 2008, but it wasn't until early 2009 that he mounted a comeback with Relapse, an album whose very title alluded to some of Mathers' struggles with prescription drugs, but it also announced that after an extended absence, Slim Shady was back. While not quite a blockbuster, the album went platinum, and Eminem followed it at the end of the year with an expanded version of Relapse (dubbed Relapse: Refill) that added outtakes and new recordings. Recovery, initially titled Relapse 2, was issued in June 2010. The album debuted on top of the Billboard 200 chart, where it remained for five consecutive weeks, while its leadoff single, "Not Afraid," debuted on top of the magazine's Hot 100 singles chart.

The year 2010 also brought Eminem back together with Royce da 5'9" under the Bad Meets Evil moniker. In turn, June 2011's Hell: The Sequel marked the release of their first EP as a duo (barring the previous month's release of key EP track "Fastlane" as a single) and was their first batch of new material since a 1999 double A-side. After an intense period of recording, Eminem announced in August 2013 that his next solo album would be a nostalgically themed set of new material entitled The Marshall Mathers LP 2, which landed in early November. The album featured the singles "Berzerk," "Rap God," and "Survival," plus the chart-topping hit "The Monster" with Rihanna. In 2014, new tracks landed on the double-disc set Shady XV, which celebrated the Shady label's 15th birthday. The singles "Phenomenal" and "Kings Never Die" featuring Gwen Stefani arrived a year later, both taken from the Southpaw soundtrack.

Eminem resurfaced in October 2017 with a freestyle anti-Trump rap, which didn't appear on Revival, the December 2017 album that was filled with cameos, including appearances by Beyoncé ("Walk on Water"), Ed Sheeran ("River"), and P!nk ("Need Me"). His seventh straight chart-topper, it ultimately failed to match the sales heights of past efforts, despite the international success of the "River" single. The next year, without warning, Eminem issued his surprise tenth album, Kamikaze. The set featured appearances by Joyner Lucas, Royce da 5'9", and Jessie Reyez, as well as "Venom," from the film of the same name. In January 2020, he repeated this surprise-release approach with 11th studio album Music to Be Murdered By. The album featured production from Dr. Dre and cameos from the now-usual host of special guests, this time featuring Q-Tip, Ed Sheeran, Anderson .Paak, and the late Juice Wrld, among many others. The set debuted at number one on the Billboard charts and was re-released in expanded form in December under the title Music to Be Murdered By: Side B. In 2021, Eminem appeared on the Skylar Grey song "Last One Standing" along with Polo G and Mozzy. The track was featured on the soundtrack for the film Venom: Let There Be Carnage and cracked the Top 100 of the Billboard charts. 2021 also saw Eminem opening a spaghetti restaurant in Detroit, named Mom's Spaghetti after a line from "Lose Yourself."

In February 2022, he performed alongside Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, and others at the half-time show of Super Bowl LVI. That June, Eminem released "The King and I," a track he recorded with CeeLo Green for the soundtrack of Baz Luhrmann's Elvis Presley biopic, Elvis. "The King and I" was one of three new songs on Curtain Call 2, a 2022 compilation covering the singles Eminem had released since Curtain Call: The Hits. "From the D to the LBC," a collaboration with Snoop Dogg, was also featured on Curtain Call 2.

In June of 2024, Eminem released his 12th studio LP The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce). The album largely centered around the concept of Marshall Mathers being kidnapped by his alter ego Slim Shady and fighting internally between these two sides of his personality. The album included production work from Dr. Dre, DJ Premier, and Benny Blanco, as well as rap cameos from Big Sean, BabyTron, JID, and others. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Australian singer/songwriter Sia is an inimitable presence on the pop scene with an unmistakable voice and a sound that has yielded scores of hits for both herself and a long list of collaborators. Through the course of her career, she swiftly rose from being a guest vocalist to a solo artist and accomplished hitmaker for the likes of Beyoncé, Celine Dion, Kanye West, Eminem, and countless others. On albums such as 2001's Healing Is Difficult and 2004's Colour the Small One -- which featured one of her definitive songs, "Breathe Me" -- she established herself on the indie scene with her distinctively vulnerable voice, one that would soon crossover into the pop mainstream. As time went on, she expanded her range to include the livelier fare of 2010's We Are Born and 2014's 1000 Forms of Fear, which included her signature Grammy-nominated song "Chandelier." In addition to these solo efforts, she also became an in-demand pop songwriter, with Rihanna's 2013 single "Diamonds" among the biggest hits she wrote for other artists. She penned so many songs for others that the ones left unused were reclaimed and recorded by the artist herself, landing on 2016's This Is Acting, home to "Cheap Thrills," her first single to top the Billboard 100 chart. By 2021, she'd branched out to filmmaking, directing and co-writing Music, which was accompanied by a soundtrack of the same name. In 2024, she released her tenth solo effort, the triumphant Reasonable Woman.

The Adelaide-born Sia Furler was raised in an artistic household by a musician father and art lecturer mother. Influenced by Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and Sting, she started performing on the local jazz circuit in the '90s as a vocalist for the band Crisp. An attempt to launch a solo career in 1997 didn't pan out, however, and she eventually hopped on a plane to London. While there, she landed a gig as a backup singer for Jamiroquai and inked a solo contract with DancePool, a sublabel of Sony. Sia released her first single "Taken for Granted" in early 2000. Although the song only peaked at number 100 on the Australian charts, it rose to number ten in the U.K. and increased European demand for her debut album, Healing Is Difficult, which followed in 2001. At the same time, a string of high-profile names in the British music scene began asking for Sia's services; offers from Zero 7 and William Orbit ensued. Although some projects only called for Sia to sing on one song, her association with Zero 7 proved to be a recurring event. She ultimately remained with Zero 7 for three albums, serving as the group's go-to vocalist while also furthering her own career with solo releases like Colour the Small One and Some People Have Real Problems.

Meanwhile, Sia also began building an audience in America. One of the songs from Colour the Small One, "Breathe Me," gained attention when it was used in the elaborate final scene of the Six Feet Under series, and the resulting buzz allowed her to enjoy a successful stateside tour. That tour was documented on her first live release, Lady Croissant, in 2007. By the following year, Sia's American audience had increased to the point that Some People Have Real Problems, her third album, debuted at number 26.

Zero 7 began working on another album in 2009, but Sia had already shifted most of her attention to furthering her own career, and the band hired another singer in her place. Working alongside bassist Sam Dixon, she boosted her songwriting cred by writing several songs for Christina Aguilera, who put the songs on her 2010 release, Bionic. Sia also continued writing songs for herself, and We Are Born marked her most upbeat album to date in 2010. It also went on to become very successful, charting around the world and going to number two in Australia. Additionally, she took further steps into the mainstream with a string of hit collaborations with Flo Rida ("Wild Ones") and David Guetta ("Titanium"), the latter of whom became a key artistic partner in the years to come.

As the spotlight grew hotter and brighter, Sia -- whose shy and withdrawn personality was at odds with her public persona -- began to struggle with the pressures of fame. She spent the next few years out of the spotlight, continuing her parallel career as a backroom songwriter for the likes of Madonna, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Celine Dion, and Rihanna, for whom she wrote the worldwide number one smash hit "Diamonds." In 2013, she started on a new album, working once again with producer Greg Kurstin.

Wary of further emotional anguish brought upon by her newfound level of public exposure, she negotiated a near-unprecedented contract with RCA stipulating that she would not have to tour or do press; her first public appearance to promote the album on The Ellen DeGeneres Show saw her perform her single "Chandelier" with her back to the audience. She also began donning an oversized wig that obscured most of her face, inadvertently creating her own signature look. Penned with frequent collaborators Jesse Shatkin and Kurstin, "Chandelier" was a hit, landing on her sixth full-length album 1000 Forms of Fear, which arrived in July 2014. The LP promptly hit number one in several countries, including the U.S. and Australia, and spawned additional hits "Big Girls Cry" and "Elastic Heart." Furler and Kurstin also reworked existing music and wrote three new songs for the 2014 adaptation of the Broadway musical Annie; one of their new compositions, "Opportunity," was nominated at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards for Best Original Song. At the 77th Annual Grammy Awards, "Chandelier" scored nominations for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Pop Solo Performance, and Best Music Video.

Empowered by the acclaim earned by 1000 Forms of Fear, Sia began work on its follow-up in early 2015. Late that year, the singles "Alive" (which Furler co-wrote with Adele) and "Bird Set Free" heralded the January 2016 release of This Is Acting, a pop-oriented set of previously unrecorded songs she wrote for artists such as Katy Perry, Rihanna, and Adele. In July, "Cheap Thrills" -- the second official single, originally intended for Rihanna -- became Sia's first Billboard 100 chart-topper and was certified platinum around the world. A deluxe edition of the album arrived soon after, bolstered by "The Greatest" featuring Kendrick Lamar.

The following year, Sia released several non-album tracks, including the Zayn duet "Dusk 'Til Dawn," the Stargate and P!nk collaboration "Waterfall," and soundtrack contributions for films such as Wonder Woman and My Little Pony. By the end of 2017, she and Kurstin reunited for Everyday Is Christmas, a set of original holiday songs including the single "Santa's Coming for Us." The album was released on Sia's Monkey Puzzle imprint that November. In 2018, Sia teamed up with Labrinth and Diplo under the moniker LSD and issued the single "Thunderclouds," while also contributing the song "Helium" (her sixth collaboration with David Guetta) to the soundtrack for Fifty Shades Darker. The LSD project continued to expand with additional singles "Genius," "Audio," and "No New Friends," with a full-length effort landing in April 2019. The island-kissed psychedelic dance-pop of Labrinth, Sia & Diplo Present LSD included all previously released singles, as well as a remix with Lil Wayne.

In January 2020, she contributed the song "Original" to the Doolittle soundtrack. Later that year, she issued "Together," the first single from her forthcoming film 2021's Music: Songs from and Inspired by the Motion Picture, which she directed and co-wrote. The soundtrack was further promoted with the singles "Courage to Change," the Burna Boy-featuring "Hey Boy," and yet another joint Guetta track, "Floating Through Space." In between full-lengths, her 2016 track "Unstoppable" became an unexpected viral hit on social media, landing back on the radio and pushing past a billion plays on streaming services. By 2022, the song had topped the Adult Contemporary and Adult Top 40 charts in the U.S. With "Unstoppable" still ubiquitous on pop radio, Sia began her next album era with her tenth solo set arriving in 2024. Boosted by the Top Ten hit "Gimme Love" and the Kylie Minogue duet "Dance Alone," Reasonable Woman returned Sia to the level of intensity and quality of her mid-2010s output. She was once again joined by Kurstin and Shatkin, along with Rosalía, Labrinth, Chaka Khan, Missy Elliot, Tierra Whack, Kaliii, Jimmy Jolliff, and Paris Hilton. ~ Neil Z. Yeung