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"Guilty Conscience" is a song by the rapper Eminem, released in 1999. It was the third and final single from his major label debut album, The Slim Shady LP, which was also released that year. The song was orignally a freestyle between Dr.Dre and Eminem. The song featured Em's mentor, Dr. Dre, and it helped cement his musical style. The song was successful, featuring a duel between the two rappers, who are playing the role of the good and evil inside someone's brain in the manner of a medieval morality play (i.e., the "angel and devil on the shoulders" competing for possession of a person's soul). Dr. Dre is portrayed as the angel or good conscience, and Eminem is portrayed as the devil or evil conscience. There are also spoken parts and sound effects describing several dilemma scenarios, making the contrast even more interesting by building tension and curiosity. Eminem is generally credited for writing Dre's verses in the song as well as his own. The first verse of the song features the story of Eddie, 23, who is at the end of the rope with his life, and about to rob a liquor store. In this one, Dre manages to convince him not to go through with it, though Eminem tries to convince him to go through with his plan and go to one of his aunts' house, disguise himself and change his identity so that no witnesses would recognize him. He also tries to justify the theft with the poverty of Eddie's family. Dr. Dre also warns Eddie that the people who witness the robbery will report it to the police and will be mentioned on the news and that Eddie will end up on the most wanted list when Dre says "If the whole thing goes through like it's supposed to, the whole neighborhood knows you and they'll expose you." In the unedited version, Eminem also tries to get him to murder the store clerk (whom Dre says is "older than George Burns").
The third verse is about Grady, 29, a construction worker who came home to find his wife having sex with another man in bed. In the unedited version, Eminem demands that Grady kill his wife brutally. When Dre tries to cut in, Eminem tells Grady to leave his wife and take his and his wife's kids with him, and Eminem also brings up Dre's violent N.W.A. past, accusing him of hypocrisy when he says, "Mr. Dre, Mr. N.W.A., Mr. A.K. coming straight outta Compton, y'all better make way. How in the fuck (hell in the edited version) are you gonna tell this man not to be violent?" . In the end, Dre agrees that Grady should murder both his wife and her lover. This ending in particular caused a lot of controversy, especially since the ending was left in the edited version of the song. The video for "Guilty Conscience" has a nonstop backbeat with a chorus, unlike the album version, and a different narrator, played by actor Robert Culp. The version that aired on MTV also eliminated the murder at the end and converted it into an escalating argument between Eminem and Dre with no resolution. The beat in the chorus is intended to resemble that in the song I Will Follow Him by Little Peggy March.
Eminem later released "Guilty Conscience" on his greatest hits album, Curtain Call: The Hits. The non-stop backbeat and chorus from the music video was only in the edited version, but the narrator wasn't changed.
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