To return to the very early 2000s, and to listen to the hyperactive, cocky madness of Slim Shady at his feverish best, it is a struggle to imagine that the man behind the persona, Marshall Mathers, may actually have been a shy, thoughtful introvert. But, as he has made clear in interviews and subsequent releases, Eminem really is a very inward-looking and anxious person.

His childhood was one defined by feelings of insecurity. That’s why he has, as an adult, released music specifically intended to comfort all those young people who have ever, in their own lives, felt a similar way.

Eminem’s eighth album, 2013’s The Marshall Mathers LP 2, serves as a sequel to the first Marshall Mathers LP, which came out 13 years beforehand. It naturally involved a lot of self-reflection, and that is particularly apparent on the track ‘Legacy,’ in which he recalls his shy, self-doubting childhood days: “I used to be the type of kid that would always think the sky is fallin’ / Why am I so differently wired? Am I a martian? / What kind of twisted experiment am I involved in? / ’Cause I don’t belong in this world / That’s why I’m scoffin’ at authority, defiant often.”

Anybody who grew up shy and nervous will recognise the self-conscious anxiety weighing down these words, and the sense of a confusing, inaccessible world swirling around the young protagonist. But Eminem has addressed the song’s contents more directly, reflecting on the track during an interview he gave to Rolling Stone shortly before the album’s release. “I always try to make my music relatable to the kid who people said, ‘He ain’t shit’ or [got] bullied or whatever,” he said of ‘Legacy.’ “It felt like one of them self-empowerment songs.”

Eminem explained that ‘Legacy’ was specifically written for those kids who, like his own younger self, hold lofty dreams and aspirations, but who feel like they have to go it alone and unsupported. “Everybody, I believe, wants to show the world that, ‘One day I’m gonna be this. One day I’m gonna be that,’” he said.

“Everybody has goals, aspirations or whatever, and everybody has been at a point in their life where nobody believed in them. Like, if you haven’t been kicked or whatever, if you never went through… tribulations and shit like that, then you’re perfect and fuck you anyways. So everybody has been in that place where they just have been counted out or not even counted. Like, ‘You don’t matter.’ ‘Oh yeah? I’m gonna show you.’”

Eminem was clearly motivated to succeed, even at a young age, but he was not driven entirely by this need to defy doubters and bullies. He needed a more positive driver, too, and, for that, he turned to music. There were plenty of rappers that inspired the young Mathers, so, in ‘Legacy,’ the grown-up Eminem seeks to offer that same comfort and inspiration to other young people who need it most. “It was about incorporating that idea into the idea of my legacy — into what I leave behind when I’m gone,” he explained.

He concluded: “And I always looked up to other rappers for the words that they gave me. There’s many, many songs that got me through a lot of shit.”