Eminem Eyes Another Encore

Rapper says he may release his first new album in four years before the end of 2008

The real Slim Shady is not only standing up, he's coming back.

Four years after his apparent curtain call, Eminem has announced that he has returned to the studio and may release a new album by the end of the year.

"I'm concentrating on my own stuff right now, just banging out tracks," the artist born Marshall Mathers III said during a recent appearance on his Sirius satellite radio station, Shade 45.

"The more I keep producing, the better it seems I get," he said.

Good to know some things never change—like Eminem's capacity for confidence.

"I start knowing stuff, learning the boards like the back of my hands."

Interscope, Eminem's label, confirmed to Billboard that a new studio set from the Grammy and Oscar winner could come later this year, but said there was no official release date for either an album or a single.

Meanwhile, Eminem protégé 50 Cent seems to think such formalities have little bearing on his colleague's production, telling BBC's Radio 1 earlier this week that fans would be "seeing [Eminem] shortly."

"He's working. I spent the weekend at his house. Even though he tries to relax and stay at home, it's impossible for him to stay in."

The 35-year-old Em's last release was 2004's Encore, and he's racked up plenty of potential new material since then.

In 2005, he entered rehab for sleeping pills, and in 2006, he remarried and—three months later—divorced his ex-wife, Kimberly. The same year, his close friend and best man, D12 rapper Proof, was shot to death at a nightclub on Detroit's Eight Mile Road.