For any teen who grew up listening to hip-hop or rap around the time of the mid-1990s to the 2000s, Eminem was one of the artists who defined your adolescence.

With his newest album, “The Marshall Mathers LP 2,” Eminem is joined by Rihanna, Skylar Grey, Kendrick Lamar and Fun. frontman Nate Ruess in guest appearances and by producer Rick Rubin, the man largely responsible for the resurgence of Johnny Cash in the late 1990s.

As Eminem told Rolling Stone, “MMLP2,” the sequel to one of his most popular albums, 2000’s “The Marshall Mathers LP,” is less about meeting expectations and “more about the nostalgia.”

Eminem’s past is clearly a recurring theme throughout the album, which features the retrospective Mathers confronting himself about past issues including his use of homophobic lyrics (“Bad Guy”), his relationship with fame (“Monster”) and his mother (“Headlights”), with whom he has held decades of resentment, and, finally, his alter-ego and emotional-crutch ‘Slim Shady’ (“Evil Twin”).

Where “MMLP2” ultimately succeeds is in the fact that Eminem has returned to his proverbial roots while bringing his matured 41-year-old self with him. The album makes it evident that this is an artist who has evolved from the crude kid from Detroit into a lyrical master who may have very well reached the pinnacle of the rap genre as we know it and that he helped evolve in the first place (see track nine, “Rap God”).

The album has enough catchy crowd pleasers (“Love Game”) and anthems (“Survival”) that will surely be mainstays for house parties for years to come to pull in the general audience, but for fans with any inkling of an interest in rap or Eminem himself, “MMLP2” deserves an old-fashioned CD purchase for your Walkman and a nice 70-plus minute introspective trip down memory lane.

jdredmon@mavs.coloradomesa.edu