Trivia

• What seems like Eminem’s perspective backstage is, in fact, that of mass murderer Stephen Paddock. On October 1, 2017, Paddock opened fire from a hotel room on concertgoers attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas. There were 59 fatalities, including Paddock.
• Less than an hour after the album’s surprise drop, “Darkness” was promoted as the de facto lead single. While it never received a standalone retail or streaming release, its promotion was driven primarily by the premiere of its music video.
• Written as a protest against American gun laws, the track serves as a direct response to the nation’s recurring mass shootings. The music video concludes with a call to action: “When will it end? When enough people care. Register to vote at vote.gov — make your voice heard and help change gun laws in America.”
• The song peaked at No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 17 on the UK Singles Chart.

Words from Eminem and Royce Da 5’9”

“

Royce sent me a beat and it had [a “Sound Of Silence” sample], and “sounds of violence” is the first thing that popped in my head, because it was structured really weird. But the sample — that Simon & Garfunkel shit — was so dark and hopeless to me. I try to sit and think sometimes, “Let me rap about some shit that I haven’t really rapped about yet.” And it gets harder and harder, because the more songs you make, you’ve rapped about everything. But I thought very much in the frame of mind of “Bad Guy,” where maybe I could make people think that I’m talking about drugs, or that I’m talking about myself getting ready to go do a show. And then, of course, the twist at the end — there’s one line where you realize, “Wait a minute, that don’t make sense.” […]

My daughters go to a lot of concerts, and we do them. That shit really hit home with me — not that every other shooting doesn’t hit home — but I related to the situation so much. And it made [me] realize you could just be anywhere and shit can go down.

“

If there’s something that I’m passionate about — like, this is making me either angry or excited or whatever it is — I might get the idea to do a song about it, like the Darkness song. When I want to say something, when I feel like I really have something to say, I’mma do it. […] I figured I would get some [backlash from the song’s message], but I more so care about what I believe in. And whoever else gets fuckin’ pissed off, I don’t give a fuck. This is my view on it, and this is my take.

“

I sent him the “Darkness” beat and he wrote to it at the house. He called me and was like, “Yo. I got something to that beat. Send me the stems.” Em is a way more seasoned producer than me. He added like a lot of instruments on top of it and once he did that, after he laid his vocals, then it started to really, really become a record.