How Eminem Killed Slim Shady — And Landed the Biggest Hip-Hop Debut of the Year

It’s been 25 years since Eminem announced himself on the international stage with his iconic, revered 1999 album The Slim Shady LP. The album — technically his second, but his first on major label Interscope — included huge singles like “Guilty Conscience,” “Role Model” and, most significantly, “My Name Is,” which introduced his alter-ego character Slim Shady to the world. His even bigger followup album, 2000’s The Marshall Mathers LP, doubled down with “The Real Slim Shady,” which hit No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spawned one of the most iconic awards show performances of all time, with the bleach-blonde-haired hip-hop superstar lording over his legion of lookalikes.

But it’s been a quarter century since then, and Slim Shady is dead, locked in Eminem’s basement. The final nail came with his latest album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace), which this week became Em’s 11th album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, racking up 281,000 equivalent album units and landing the biggest week for a hip-hop album this year so far. In addition to the star power that Eminem brings with any new release, the album’s big first week was also the result of a meticulous, months-long marketing rollout involving Fortnite activations, a mock true crime video, print newspaper obituaries and big-time singles like “Houdini,” which landed at No. 2 on the Hot 100 upon its release. And it helps earn Interscope Geffen A&M senior vp of marketing Jason Sangerman the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.

Here, Sangerman — who has worked on 11 Eminem albums himself over the course of his career — talks about that extended marketing plan, the collaborations with Eminem and his longtime manager and Shady Records CEO Paul Rosenberg to set the record up, and what comes next. “The great thing about an artist like Eminem is he keeps everyone guessing, and that includes us, so it keeps you operating at the highest level,” he says.

This week, Eminem’s latest album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace), debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with the biggest first week for a hip-hop album this year. What key decision did you make to help make that happen?

Everything we do when we begin to engage in discussions around the marketing strategy is led by Eminem and his partner and manager Paul Rosenberg. Once we have our initial plan, the Shady Records team and the larger Interscope team begin building it out. There’s a ton of brainstorming and we all work well bouncing ideas off one another — but when it comes to the execution, precision is non-negotiable.

The key to this rollout was thinking and working comprehensively. It always starts with the music. Marshall delivered yet another amazing album; this time it also came with a high-concept narrative woven throughout. We put a plan together with Paul that gave us plenty of runway to activate all the essential components — social platforms, press, radio, DSPs, D2C, gaming, our Complex relationship, IRL pop-ups, etc. The plan not only enabled us to engage his global fanbase, but we created new entry points for prospective fans, which was key to a successful launch.

The concept of this album — killing off the iconic alter ego of one of the most successful rappers of all time — must have both been a marketer’s dream and nearly overwhelming to contemplate. How did you approach setting it up?

The character of Slim Shady and the world built around him is all Marshall’s creation. It’s always a privilege to help provide a tangible experience for the fans based off his ideas, and so a lot of the marketing plan starts directly from Marshall and Paul. The larger Interscope team then creates a space to augment and build upon those innovative ideas. It’s always critical, but especially so given the nature of this particular album, to get the chronology right for each moment. We couldn’t make a move that would potentially give away something planned for a future payoff.

In what ways were you able to call back to the original Slim Shady character from 25 years ago?

It’s so wild to hear “25 years ago,” because Eminem was the first concert I saw when I was growing up. It was the Slim Shady Tour at the House of Blues on Sunset. I still have the original T-shirt. That colorful crayon style Slim Shady logo was one of the pieces that was brought back into the mix for this album. Once “Houdini” was released, there were elements of nostalgia in everything we did, and they became Easter eggs for the album marketing — the “Rap Boy” costume, the blonde hair, a flash mob of “real” Slim Shadys popping up in Washington Square Park in New York, etc.

The Complex “Face Off” piece is of course an integral part of the campaign, and a key element in explaining the concept around the album. It goes without saying that Marshall has earned the right to be very judicious about the way he puts himself out there to the world. Complex came to us with a really creative idea that builds off the album’s narrative and brings it to life in a way that makes sense for him and his fans.

Another important element to all of this is that many of us at Interscope have been working with Eminem and Paul for years. Some of us, like [vice chairman] Steve Berman, since the very first record. So, there’s an institutional knowledge built in among the team that we bring to each Eminem release, and we definitely tapped into that for this campaign. 

How were you able to use the singles and music videos to help promote the album and its themes?

The great thing about an artist like Eminem is he keeps everyone guessing, and that includes us, so it keeps you operating at the highest level. Of course, he’s dropped albums recently with little to no warning as surprise releases, but in this case, we were having conversations with Paul and Marshall in Detroit about the best way to roll out this project last year. Given the album’s theme, they wanted there to be true singles along with videos to set the project up. Paul and the team at Shady led those conversations. They’ve always had an extraordinary vision.  

Obviously, Eminem’s songwriting is unparalleled, but he’s also a super visual artist. So the video for “Houdini” was crucial to launching this campaign. It has a similar energy to first singles from earlier albums — so right there you have another benefit of the team’s long-term continuity. We had the ability to tap into a collective knowledge base from past releases. The “Houdini” video allowed fans who have always loved Slim to reconnect while introducing the character to a new generation of fans. 

“Houdini” was the spark that activated everything we had been planning for so long. Every single person on the team did their part to help mobilize and expand fandom around the track. We always try to build an entire world around a release, and the immediate global reaction to “Houdini” allowed us to pour gasoline on the fire. 

How was the rollout for this project different from any other in Eminem’s career — and in your career as well?

This plan started well before the album was announced. If you look back at the Eminem and Fortnite activation from the end of last year, you’ll see that some of the aspects in that collaboration included throwback Slim Shady themes — the popcorn trail started all the way back then. There was a long roadmap leading up to the album release that had storytelling components every week, using every medium that made sense. We used advanced AI technology in some of our visuals, but we also ran a fake “true crime” show commercial on TV to announce the album, and then we took out the Slim Shady obituaries as print-only media in physical newspapers. Some of the music critics at those papers didn’t even see them until they got traction from other outlets. Regarding my career, this is the 11th Eminem project I’ve worked — I’m just lucky to be anywhere around something like this.

Slim Shady is dead. Where does Eminem go from here?

Eminem always likes the element of surprise, and since I don’t need him making an album called “The Death of Jason Sangerman,” I’ll leave that up to him to answer.