Other than Howl & Echoes, Genius is my favourite website in the whole world. A hub for lyrics, explanations and intensely detailed stories penned by the most dedicated stans, the capacity for what you can learn trawling through the website for a few hours is endless.
One of my favourite aspects of the website are the annotations (and co-signed user annotations) made by artists themselves – usually about their own songs, but not always. Eminem, Rick Rubin, Chance the Rapper, various members of Wu-Tang Clan and many more have taken to the website to provide insight into their own lyrics. Recently, Eminem shocked fans around the world by explaining that the opening words on Cleanin’ Out My Closet – “Where’s my snare? I have no snare in my headphones,” meant that indeed, he did not have any snare on his headphones. Crazy, I know.
Marshall Mathers has once more taken to the website to provide more insight on a few of his songs. They’re all latter-day Eminem, sure, but it doesn’t make them any less interesting.
He’s actually gone pretty deep – you you can check the full list out here, or the highlights below:
Last year, Eminem’s Shady Records announced a partnership with Genius, joining the ranks of Pharrell Williams and Nas among others as key partners and investors in the beloved website. Genius has also recently partnered with Spotify for a really exciting new feature on the streaming service, which sees Genius lyric annotation pop up as the song plays on Spotify.
Image: Genius