Then, in 2004, Eminem made the video "My Band" with Di2. The controversial song was the band's sarcastic response to the media's frequent portrayal of Di2 as Eminem's band, giving little to no credit to its other members. The video contained various parodies, including that of the Janet Jackson 'incident', and of 50 Cent's "In Da Club" video.

On October 12, 2004, a week after the release of "Just Lose It," Eminem's first video and single off Encore, Michael Jackson called into the Los Angeles-based Steve Harvey radio show to report his displeasure with the video, which parodies Jackson's child-molestation accusations, his rhinoplasty, and an incident in which Jackson's hair caught on fire while he was filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984. The lyrics to "Just Lose It" also refer to Jackson's troubles. In the video, Eminem also parodied Pee Wee Herman, MC Hammer, and a Blonde-Ambition-touring Madonna. Harvey himself declared, "Eminem has lost his ghetto pass. We want the pass back."

Black Entertainment Television was the first channel to stop airing the video. MTV, however, announced it would continue airing the video and "Just Lose It" became the number-one requested video on Total Request Live for the week ending October 22. The Source magazine, through its CEO Raymond "Benzino" Scott, wanted not only the video pulled, but the song off the album, and a public apology to Jackson from Eminem.

Others dismissed "Just Lose It" as a tame Weird Al Yankovic-style knockoff On Jackson's protest, Yankovic himself told the Chicago Sun-Times, "Last year, Eminem forced me to halt production on the video for my 'Lose Yourself parody because he somehow thought that it would be harmful to his image or career. So the irony of this situation with Michael is not lost on me."

On October 26, 2004 a week before the U.S. presidential election, 2004, Eminem released the video for his song titled "Mosh" on the Internet. The song features a very strong anti-Bush message, with lyrics such as "**ck Bush" and "this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president". The video features Eminem gathering up an army of people presented as victims of the Bush administration and leading them to the White House. However, once the army breaks in, it is revealed that they are there to simply register to vote, and the video ends with the words "VOTE Tuesday November 2" on the screen. On October 31, Eminem performed the song on Saturday Night Live, but some thought that he appeared to be lip-synching it.

Other Works and Ventures

Eminem made his Hollywood acting debut with the semi-autobiographical 8 Mile, released in November 2002. He recorded several new songs for the soundtrack, including "Lose Yourself," which won Eminem an Academy Award for Best Song. He has also lent his voice to the Crank Yankers show and a web cartoon called "The Slim Shady Show", which has since been pulled offline and is instead sold on DVD.

Eminem signed a deal with Sirius satellite radio to program a hip-hop oriented station called Shade 45, which is set to debut on October 28, 2004 . He also owns a clothing line called "Shady Ltd." and runs the music label Shady Records with signed artists including 50 Cent, Di2 and Obie Trice.

Encore

Eminem originally set his release date for his latest album, Encore, to be November 16, 2004. However, the leakage of the album to the Internet forced him to put forward his release date to November 12, 2004 (in a similar fashion to the release of his last studio album, The Eminem Show, in 2002). As the charts in the UK only start on Mondays, and that November 12 was a Friday, this meant he had only three days to compete for the #1 position that week. However, with the huge anticipation and pre-order sales for the album, this still allowed him to reach the top spot there, beating albums from top-selling artists like Britnev Spears and Westlife. He also didn't have a full chart week for the debut of the album in the US, but he was still able to get to #1 and beat a greatest hits compilation by Shania Twain, which did have a full chart week. He also topped the Australia albums chart.