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As detailed by the NYT:

In “Beautiful,” … [Eminem] wonders aloud whether he’ll ever rap again; he started writing it during the first day of one attempt at rehab, alone with a pen in a hospital room.

This isn’t the first time Eminem has considered exploring a new outlet.

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After losing his best friend Proof a.k.a. Deshaun Holton in 2006, Em admits he fell down.

Even before this, he suffered immensely, through an incredibly troubled upbringing, difficulty with his mother and ex-wife, and dealing with people who openly protested his right to rap. Until the year 2004, after which he began to withdraw, he was regularly releasing multi-platinum albums, cultivating his record label, and helping his crew D12 with their career. He kept getting back up.

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Em opens the song with a confessional theme. Via a Guardian interview:

I started writing the first verse and half of the second when I was in rehab going through detox. […] If you listen to that song and how it starts off, I’m just so fucking depressed.
AB: Where were you exactly when you wrote that?
Eminem: I was sitting on the end of the bed in detox, not fully committed to it and not fully detoxed. They give you medicine to make your detox not as rough. I wrote it during that period – the first two days. I was sitting there not knowing where I wanted to be in my career. I didn’t even know if I wanted a career any more, because this shit was too much. It just wasn’t worth it.

Often, there’s a feeling of “I just need something to get me through this.” That “something” might be drugs, or it could be compulsive spending or eating. There’s a false belief that a temporary lift will allow you to “snap out” of your funk. As we saw on 2010’s “Not Afraid”, Em learned that it was hard work and a dedication to his craft that would eventually pull him out of the dump/slump.

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As a rapper, Lupe metaphorically flies on Pegasus, who was a winged horse sired by Poseidon in his role as a horse-god. This is a reference to Greek mythology, which recalls the Sphinx of the previous line.

Other rappers are pheasants; they don’t fly well and prefer to run on the ground.

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