Recording
The Slim Shady LP was recorded at Studio 8 at 480 8 Mile Road in Ferndale, Michigan. Eminem, who had idolized Dr. Dre since listening to his group N.W.A as a teenager, was nervous to work with him on the album: "I didn't want to be starstruck or kiss his ass too much ... I'm just a little white boy from Detroit. I had never seen stars, let alone Dr. Dre." However, Eminem became more comfortable working with Dr. Dre after a series of highly productive recording sessions. The recording process generally began with Dr. Dre creating a beat and Eminem using the tracks as a template for his freestyle raps; "Every beat he would make, I had a rhyme for", Eminem recalled. Much of the album was recorded when Eminem was under the influence of ecstasy; Dr. Dre described the experience by saying "We get in there, get bugged out, stay in the studio for fuckin' two days. Then you're dead for three days. Then you wake up, pop the tape in, like, 'Let me see what I've done.'" On the first day of recording, Eminem and Dr. Dre finished "My Name Is" in an hour. Three other songs, including "Role Model", were also recorded that day.
"'97 Bonnie & Clyde", which was formerly featured on The Slim Shady EP as "Just the Two of Us", was rerecorded for The Slim Shady LP to feature his daughter Hailie's vocals. Because the song focuses on disposing of his girlfriend's corpse, Eminem was uncomfortable with explaining the situation to Kim, and instead told her that he would be taking Hailie to Chuck E. Cheese's. He explained, "When she found out I used our daughter to write a song about killing her, she fucking blew. We had just got back together for a couple of weeks. Then I played her the song, and she bugged the fuck out." The song "Guilty Conscience" contains a humorous reference to an occasion in which Dr. Dre assaulted rapper Dee Barnes. Having only known Dr. Dre for a few days, Eminem was anxious about how he would react to such a line, and to his relief, Dr. Dre "fell out of his chair laughing" upon hearing the lyric. "Ken Kaniff", a skit involving a prank call to Eminem, featured fellow Detroit rapper Aristotle. After a falling out between the two in the wake of Eminem's breakthrough success, Eminem instead played Ken Kaniff on skits on future albums.
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“I didn’t have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let’s say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing!”
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