Here to Save You All

Years before began outraging parents and stars alike with his brutally funny lyrics, New Jersey's was already making the musical world safe for brainy, tasteless battle-rappers with his enormously promising but little-remembered debut, 1996's . As might be expected from a rapper who boasts about his SAT scores, is both smart and eccentric, and like , he uses his razor-sharp wit to lyrically dismember everyone from to . Considering the similarities between Detroit's most notorious native son and , it's no wonder -basher of has decried the sometimes Slim Shady as a "fake It's not an entirely fair criticism, but it does contain a grain of truth, particularly since, like , has a tendency to alternate between gleefully mean-spirited black comedy with tortured, self-deprecating introspection. is undoubtedly the album's most elaborate, ambitious, and unusual song, beginning like a typical rags-to-riches narrative but taking a detour into a surreal theoretical universe where 's a huge, coke-addled mega-star whose career and life are both falling apart before his eyes. smartly and sensitively addresses the complexities, frustrations, and ambiguities of 's mixed-race heritage, while borrows the chorus of 's breakthrough hit in dramatizing the ins and outs of a dysfunctional relationship. The same overbearing force of personality that makes a hero to some will undoubtedly turn off others, but for the most part, is one of the most distinctive and underrated debuts in history. ~ Nathan Rabin