Eminem Takes a Chainsaw to Slim Shady in New ‘Tobey’ Video
Eminem has dropped a grisly music video for “Tobey,” his latest Death of Slim Shady single with Big Sean and BabyTron.
The Cole Bennett-directed clip finds the three Michigan MCs digitally duplicated, delivering their verses and interacting with their doubles as the camera roams through a variety of settings, like a warehouse, hotel room, and club. When it finally gets to Eminem’s verse, the setting switches to the front of a house that looks a lot like the one on the cover of The Marshall Mathers LP.
From there, Em embarks on a journey of his own, winding up in a dingy basement where — as promised in the video’s preview — a figure in a Jason Vorhees mask appears behind him and proceeds to chop him up with a chainsaw. And, of course, when the figure removes his mask, it turns out it was Eminem all along, ostensibly delivering the final, fatal blow to his Slim Shady alter ego.
Eminem released “Tobey” last week, marking the second offering from The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce), which is set to arrive this Friday, July 12. Eminem first started teasing the album (and the symbolic end to his alter ego) this past spring, releasing a trailer for a fake true crime doc about the death of Slim Shady. That was followed by a fake obituary published in the Detroit Free Press, which declared: “His complex and tortured existence has come to a close, and the legacy he leaves behind is no closer to resolution than the manner in which this character departed this world.”
Eminem finally released the album’s first single, “Houdini,” in May, joking that the single would make his “career disappear.” The track interpolated both his own classic, “Without Me,” and Steve Miller’s “Abracadabra” (Miller expressed his admiration for the track, saying he was “honored” by the sample).
The Death of Slim Shady will be Eminem’s 12th studio album. It follows his 2020 album, Music to Be Murdered By.