Hear Eminem and Sia’s Triumphant New Duet ‘Guts Over Fear’
Eminem has put out a new song, “Guts Over Fear,” featuring Sia, which will appear on the soundtrack to Denzel Washington’s upcoming movie, The Equalizer. The song, which has leaked online, is a synth-heavy duet showcasing Sia‘s forceful voice singing a chorus about how she now feels emboldened in the face of adversity, as the rapper parses his various insecurities and his place in rap. “The crazy part, was as soon I stopped singing I gave a fuck, haters started to appreciate my art,” he says at one point.
The duet follows up Eminem and Sia’s previous collaboration, “Beautiful Pain,” which appeared as a deluxe-edition bonus track on last year’s The Marshall Mathers LP 2. At the time of its release, though, it would have been hard to speculate the two would work together again. After fans criticized Sia, who identifies herself as “queer,” for working with a rapper who has sung homophobic verses in the past, she decided to donate her earnings from the track to the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center. “I know personally that he is not homophobic, but a performance artist,” she tweeted at the time. “I would never work with someone I believed to be homophobic. I respect that he can be misinterpreted in the worst way by the ignorami, and that scares me, but I respect him as an artist and person.”
The song is now available on iTunes, but its release also signals something bigger. Eminem has been tying the track, via social media, to a two-disc compilation, ShadyXV, which is set to come out on Black Friday, November 24th. The release commemorates the 15th anniversary of the rapper’s label, Shady Records, and contains the label’s greatest hits like 50 Vent’s “In Da Club” and Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,” as well as new songs from Eminem, Slaughterhouse, Bad Meets Evil, D-12 and Yelawolf, as well as collaborations with guest artists. He heralded the record with a tweet that included a career-encompassing video montage.
Yes it’s official… #SHADYXV Black Friday. https://t.co/B0WCDoEeVO
— Marshall Mathers (@Eminem) August 25, 2014