Slim Shady

On Eminem’s summer tour, a tense video story line is woven through the rapper’s show. Following a montage of visuals encapsulating his vast celebrity – magazine covers, television footage, limos, crowds – the star is seen alone backstage, aiming a loaded pistol at his image in a mirror before turning it toward himself.

The climax is abrupt: With the gun to his temple, Eminem pulls the trigger. The screen goes black.

When the dressing room eventually fades back into view, the audience sees that he sits unharmed; the gun has misfired.

Eminem looks into the camera and says: “This is how you go out with a bang, baby!”

At a casual glance, it might come off like the latest shock attack in a career defined by controversy. But dig a bit deeper and you’ll come upon a revelation even more startling, one that has been known only to the artist’s closest friends and associates:

Marshall Mathers is ready to get rid of Eminem.

Here’s what it could mean, say those close to him: When he steps off the stage Sept. 17 in Dublin, Ireland, the Detroit rapper will have made his final concert appearance. “Encore,” his slyly titled 2004 release, will stand as the final Eminem album. The reign of Eminem, and his alter ego Slim Shady, will have been voluntarily vanquished.

It wouldn’t be a mere name game, in the hip-hop fashion that let Puff Daddy become P. Diddy, or the fanciful indulgence of a superstar toying with personas, like Prince. Nor would it be some gimmicky farewell stunt.

What it would represent, say his hometown friends and professional associates, is a dramatic life shift for a celebrity grown weary of public commotion – and an artist who feels trapped by musical expectations.

“Em has definitely gotten to the level where he feels like he’s accomplished everything he can accomplish in rap,” said rapper Proof, Mathers’ right-hand man onstage. “He wants to kick back and get into the producing thing.”

Detroit producer Jeff Bass, who won an Academy Award for co-writing Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,” said while he won’t rule out the possibility of further solo albums from Mathers, “the Eminem part of his career isn’t going to be at the forefront anymore.”

If Mathers is truly set to shake things up, exactly where he goes from here is unclear. He’s not doing interviews this summer, and his spokesman at Interscope Records in Los Angeles declined to comment.

Manager Paul Rosenberg said there’s been “no official decision” about the future. But he acknowledged that some kind of recalibration is likely, adding that Eminem’s latest multiplatinum record is “certainly the cap on this part of his career.”

Others by his side, from business partners to fellow MCs in D12, say Mathers is ready to embark on a path like that of mentor Dr. Dre, who upon reaching his 30s eased away from the microphone for a successful career as a producer and star-maker.

Such a move by Mathers would shake the tectonic plates of pop culture. At 33, he is the best-selling hip-hop artist in history and, by many standards, the globe’s biggest music star.

Eminem has now been front and center of the American music scene for nearly seven years. The Beatles were there for six.

That he’s pulled off such a feat in this era, within the realm of rap, makes the dynasty that much more remarkable. Both the 2000s and hip-hop favor a chew-‘em-up, spit-‘em-out mentality. Together, they’re nearly lethal to longevity.

“Marshall is very smart about this stuff,” said one musical partner. “He knows the danger of being at this level, where there’s nowhere to go but down.”

In November, Mathers unveiled his mind-set for everybody – and nobody caught on. His new album was titled “Encore,” complete with a cover photo that showed him taking a bow.

“I was actually pretty shocked when no one picked up on the concept,” said manager Rosenberg.

Maybe the audience was still too noisy to notice. “Encore,” his first solo effort in more than two years, was the most anticipated album of the season, generating wall-to-wall hype on its way to the obligatory critical kudos and No. 1 debut. Eight months later, sales are nearing 5 million.

The new concert video, with its metaphoric killing of Eminem, merely extends a concept already sketched by Mathers.

Buried in the “Encore” album notes is a line that reads: “To my fans … I’m sorry,” adjacent to an image of a bullet. On the album-ending “Encore/Curtains Down,” he delivers his closing stanza accompanied by the sound of gunfire: “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming out – peace! / Oh … I almost forgot / You’re comin’ with me / Ha ha! Bye bye!”

As “Encore” promotional plans were mapped out, sources say, worried advisers convinced the rapper to leave it at that, to resist further tip-offs that “Encore” was the end: Why chain himself to a pledge he might not want to keep?

Extensive discussions did precede the album’s release, said Rosenberg, but the decision to withhold a farewell announcement was driven by Mathers himself.

“He didn’t want to seem like one of those guys who’s playing a trick on his fans, or playing with their heads,” said Rosenberg, pointing to the on-again, off-again retirement of hip-hop star Jay-Z. “It’s part of the same struggle he goes through in his music – ‘How much of my inner thinking should I be putting out there?’ “

But if this really is it, why now?

Friends say several factors have converged to create the transformative moment: a growing weariness with the media spotlight, a related drive for solitude and family time, and a savvy recognition of the links between credibility, age and the limited shelf lives that come with pop stardom.

For a figure who remains perched atop the music world, Mathers has kept a startlingly low profile these past three years – no U.S. tour, one solo album, few forays into the big-media spotlight.

Since a pair of gun incidents in 2000 that led to probation (and accompanying drug testing) he has reshaped his personal life, toning down his wild side while toning up in the gym.

He and ex-wife Kim reunited last year. Friends say he is now happiest at home, where the couple tend to their 9-year-old daughter, Mathers’ 12-year-old niece and Kim’s 2-year-old daughter by another man.

But of all the reasons for retiring Eminem, musical motivations top the list.

Over time, Mathers’ songs have alluded to his frustration at feeling creatively cornered by public expectations. You don’t need a decoder ring to get the message: “I’ve created a monster / ‘Cause nobody wants to see Marshall no more,” he rapped on the chart-topping 2002 hit “Without Me.” “They want Shady / I’m chopped liver.”

The making of “Encore” proved particularly tough, as Mathers searched for new ways to cover the stock Eminem repertoire: feuding with Kim, battling the establishment, cleaning out his family’s emotional closet – all the familiar fare that has defined his public character.

“This was a very difficult record for him to make,” said a source in Detroit. “Marshall really struggles to write for himself now, to speak through the voice of Eminem. He knows as well as anybody that there comes a point where you risk beating this thing to death.”

Though Mathers remains under contract to Interscope, he can’t be forced to deliver another record, based on music industry precedent established by California courts.

He will likely devote increased time to “guest appearances and working on other people’s stuff,” said Jeff Bass. “The songs I’ve been writing with him are being placed on other artists’ albums now.”

The members of D12, rappers who played barren Detroit dives with Eminem long before they accompanied him in sold-out arenas, have already begun preparing for the shift – founding their own companies, taking on outside production work, recording solo albums and scheduling solo tours.

No matter how it goes down, no matter what the rationale, fans are likely to be blindsided if 2005 is the last call for Eminem.

After a recent concert in Columbus, Ohio, people streamed out of the amphitheater buzzing about the set they’d just seen, a spectacle featuring some of the highest production values to hit a hip-hop stage.

Greg Thomas, 24, who made the trip from Ann Arbor, Mich., had watched the onstage video and heard the “Encore” songs. But he hadn’t connected the dots. The notion that this could be it, the end, left him in disbelief.

“That would be horrible,” he said. “Eminem is the one who unites everybody.

“Look around you here. He brings together white, black, Puerto Rican, Filipino, everybody. If he were to give it up now, who would take over?”

Whatever the impact of an Eminem fadeout, those closest to Marshall Mathers say they would admire what could be the brashest move of all by a friend who has long pushed the envelope.

“I would envy him for it,” said producer Mark Bass, Jeff’s brother. “Who knows if he’ll make another album. But he’s worked hard – he’s been at the top because he’s worked hard. If he makes a break, he deserves to get a break.”