On the eve of the official release for Eminem’s Marshall Mathers LP 2, Complex Magazine released two interactive digital covers. Two interviews picking the “Rap God’s” brain on albums past and present. While Em is bringing us back to basics with his latest offering, he is crafting personal lyrics that aren’t a complete reveal.

“Yeah, I don’t know. A lot of my career I put a lot of my life out there. It was personal shit I would put out there and didn’t really give a fuck,” Eminem said. “Sometimes I think back and I’m like, “Damn, was I doing the right thing? How much of myself do I wanna put out there?’”

Eminem approached this album with a different concept in comparison to Recovery and the first MMLP. Aside from letting fans into the darkness of recovering from drug addiction and his personal relationships, Em plans to give fans a true hip-hop album.

“This isn’t Recovery, where I was coming off some personal tragedies. I’m not coming off of a drug overdose. It’s more about going back to the basics of hip-hop and some fundamentals in that sense.”

Eminem and Rihanna definitely have a basic musical formula that works. With their latest collaborative track, the pair face their inner demons and the negative effects of fame in “Monster.” After listening to the beat initially, Em revealed to MTV’s Sway that he already had a track with Rih Rih’s voice in mind.

“As soon as I got the beat I just heard her on it,” Em said. “I wanted to make sure that I had it finished first to be able to present to her, but once I had the rhymes done, I sent it to her.”

While the duo couldn’t hop in the booth together, the Detroit native did hint that a video may be underway. Hopefully their schedules can align to provide visuals for the track.

Head over to Complex for the full interview and check out what Em has to say about himself and Rihanna in the clip below. – Alley Olivier