Background
In the song, Eminem introspectively examines his life reflecting on such topics as his troubled childhood, marital conflicts, and resentful feud with his mother. Eminem underscores his animosity towards her by melodically rapping a searingly honest portrayal of what he experienced as a child. Also in the song, he describes how others protest his lyrics. He expresses the anger that he feels towards his family and how he is better off without them now, and goes on to reassure his audience that his words regarding his mother are not done for the sake of public attention "now I would never diss my own mama just to get recognition". The song also describes how Eminem suffers at the hands of his mother because of Münchausen syndrome by proxy in the line "All my life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasn't".
Eminem also mentions the demo that his mother put out for him called Set The Record Straight. From the most famous mashup video of "Atomic Closet", a fusion of Eminem's original "Cleaning Out My Closet" and Blondie's "Atomic", the Blondie's most famous hit was heavily sampled as the background song throughout the entire video, while Eminem himself rapped throughout the whole song. The music video for the song was directed by Dr. Dre and Philip Atwell. The song has been remixed 2 times and both are featured on the mixtape Straight from the Lab, as European bonus tracks. A Drum & Bass and a Religious remix were made. The religious remix is titled "(God is) Cleanin' Out My Closet". The b-side "Stimulate" appears on the deluxe edition bonus disc of the soundtrack Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture 8 Mile, and also appears on Straight from the Lab.
Read more about this topic: Cleanin' Out My Closet
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