Eminem, Slaughterhouse & Yelawolf - XXL Cover Story

It has been announced before, but here is the final version of XXL‘s cover featuring Shady Record’s latest signees Slaughterhouse and Yelawolf. Here are some excerpts of the extensive cover story which highlights the importance of lyricism in today’s Hip Hop Game.

“Slaughterhouse, it’s kinda phase two of Shady,” Em says in the story. “The new generation of Shady Records. I saw the video to ‘Pop the Trunk,’ and I was like, ‘Yo, this is fuckin’ dope,’ Em says. “I took the CD home that I had already had and started listening to the shit, and I was like, ‘Fuck, he can spit.’”

With the new Shady in tow, Eminem may be ushering in a return to wordplay in hip-hop, something that hip-hop heads have been missing from the genre for quite some time.

“It just feels good to put lyricism in the forefront again, in my eyes,” Joell Ortiz says in the article. “Some of my heroes, when I came up rhymin’, were Biggie Smalls, Big L—rest in peace to all these—Big Pun. Dudes who were passionate about the way they put words together, the message they sent when they rhymed, and just bein’ ill with the pen. And I feel like this group, and Yelawolf and Em, are dudes who stand for that. And it’s good to see the pure form gettin’ shine again.”

To read these stories make sure to pick up XXL’s March 2011 issue, with further focus on Saigon’s The Greatest Story Never Told, Snoop Dogg’s Doggumentary Music backed up by eleven important lessons and some further insight on the current status of The Fugees and much more.