Eminem Announces First Recovery Single 'Not Afraid' (album drops June 22)

MTV reports:
Though its release is less than two months away, we don't yet know a whole lot about Eminem's Recovery album. Well, we do know one thing now: The first single will be called "Not Afraid."

In his inimitably cryptic way, Slim Shady dropped that nugget of knowledge late on Monday night, tweeting simply, "I'm 'Not Afraid.' "

The song is reportedly due to debut on radio this Friday, though a spokesperson for the rapper could not be reached for comment on its release schedule at press time.

It was also not clear who produced the song, but one of the men behind the boards for the album, Jim Jonsin, recently told MTV News that he was heavily involved in Eminem's latest effort, due out June 22.

"He was open to ideas," Jonsin recalled of working with Em on Recovery. "He was real respectful to my craft. He let me do what I do. He asked me ideas on some of the lyrics. We had ideas for lyric changes. Certain words may or may not work on radio. We talked about that. He had a setup outside of the room to do production, but I'd rather be in the room where he was at, and he was cool with that. And I knocked out a couple of joints in there while he was in there with me. He was pretty open and he let me do my thing. He did his thing. It was a pretty good experience."

After working exclusively with longtime foil and mentor Dr. Dre on last year's comeback album, Relapse, Eminem reached out to a number of different producers for Recovery, including Jonsin, DJ Khalil, Just Blaze and Boi-1da. And without revealing much, Jonsin said he and Marshall Mathers went to a new place with some of the tracks they laid down together.

"We touched on something that I haven't done anything like that before," Jonsin revealed. "It's unique in a way for myself. It's a place I've been wanting to go, and I'm so happy he allowed it to go down. He played a huge part in the record. Without him on it, it's not the same. I don't wanna give up too much about what it is and what direction."

Earlier this month, Em announced that he had scrapped plans for a Relapse sequel, Relapse 2, after spending much of last year finishing it. "As I kept recording and working with new producers, the idea of a sequel to Relapse started to make less and less sense to me, and I wanted to make a completely new album," he said. "The music on Recovery came out very different from Relapse, and I think it deserves its own title."

Source: ThisIs50