Eminem has surprised fans by releasing a new album accompanied by a music video condemning gun violence.
The rapper announced the arrival of Music To Be Murdered By on Twitter, sharing a picture of the cover art which features him holding both a gun and an axe to his own head.
“It’s your funeral…” he wrote in the caption.
It’s your funeral…#MusicToBeMurderedBy Out Now – https://t.co/q4TAFJUVGV pic.twitter.com/6PqnTjCKgu
— Marshall Mathers (@Eminem) January 17, 2020
Both Music To Be Murdered By’s title and cover art are borrowed from a 1958 Alfred Hitchcock record.
The album, Eminem’s first since 2018’s Kamikaze, contains 20 tracks and a long list of featured artists.
As well as Ed Sheeran and late rapper Juice WRLD – who died in December aged 21 – Anderson Paak, Skylar Grey and Young MA all appear.
As well as the album, Eminem shared the music video for the single Darkness, which appears to have been inspired by the October 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting in which 58 people were killed.
It features a middle-aged white man firing an automatic weapon at concert-goers from a hotel room window high above the ground.
Gunman Stephen Paddock fired more than 1,100 rounds of ammunition from his suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel before turning the gun on himself.
At the end of the Darkness video, a message reading “When will this end? When enough people care” appears on the screen.
Viewers are also urged to register to vote to change gun laws in the US.