It’s been four years since Eminem released his last, eighth album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2. In that time he’s kept a low profile: quietly raising his children in Michigan and maintaining a minimal presence on social media to promote his label Shady Records, encourage his followers to donate to charity, and endorse his friends. All very polite and uncontroversial for the enfant terrible of 8 Mile.

In October 2016, he reassured fans a record was on its way and released Campaign Speech, on which he rapped about avenging the race-related killing of Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner. In October 2017, he upped the ante and performed a theatrical, furious anti-Donald Trump freestyle at the BET awards. Wearing his trademark hoodie and sporting a new beard, he lambasted the "racist" President for a catalogue of wrongs from a car park and disowned his Trump-supporting fans. The Storm ended with the line “We love our military and we love our country, but we f------ hate Trump.” It quickly went viral.

It wasn’t his cleverest or most technical rap, but it was applauded far and wide, from Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA to the cultural barometer Pitchfork. “Eminem’s parachuting in had its own strange momentum, in which the spectrum of the white male ego was on full display and rap, a form born in opposition to white supremacy, was used to challenge it,” wrote Doreen St Félix in The New Yorker.