He assembled his first album, Infinite, which received some underground attention in 1996, not all of it positive. This single also featured Proof, and the two rappers broke off on their own to form D-12, a six-member crew that functioned more as a Wu-Tang-styled collective than a regularly performing group.Īs he was struggling to establish his career, he and his girlfriend Kim had a daughter, Hailey, forcing him to spend less time rapping and more time providing for his family. The first of these was the New Jacks, and after they disbanded, he joined Soul Intent, who released a single in 1995. Initially, the predominantly Black audience didn't embrace him, but soon his skills gained him a reputation, and he was recruited to join several rap groups. Under this name, Mathers entered battle rapping, a struggle dramatized in the fictionalized 8 Mile. At the age of 14, he began rapping with a high school friend, the two adopting the names 'Manix' and 'M&M,' which soon morphed into Eminem.

Joseph, Eminem spent his childhood between Missouri and Michigan, settling in Detroit in his teens. Eminem's commercial peak came around the time of his 2002 album The Eminem Show (which went platinum 27 times over) and with his crossover onto the big screen that same year with 8 Mile, a film that earned him acclaim for his performance and an Oscar for the film's anthem, 'Lose Yourself.' A number of demons have led him to withdraw periodically, but he's always returned with mid-career rejuvenations like 2009's Relapse or 2020's Music to Be Murdered By.īorn Marshall Mathers in the Kansas City, Missouri suburb of St. With hits 'My Name Is' and 'The Real Slim Shady,' he ruled the airwaves, but it wasn't long before some detractors acknowledged his depth, helped in part by singles like the mournful 'Stan,' written from the perspective of an obsessed fan. To be certain, a great deal of the controversy Eminem courted - during the turn of the millennium, there was no greater pop culture bogeyman than Marshall Mathers - came through in how his violent fantasias, often directed at his mother or his wife, intertwined with flights of absurdity that appealed to listeners too young to absorb the psychodramas Eminem explored on his hit albums The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP. Dre, he's had music to match thick, muscular loops evoking the terror and paranoia conjured by Em's lyrics.

On sheer technical skills, Eminem is one of the greatest MCs of his generation: rapid, fluid, dexterous, and unpredictable, capable of pulling off long-form narratives or withering asides. He was the first white rapper since the Beastie Boys to garner both sales and critical respect, but his impact has exceeded this confining distinction. Eminem is one of the best-selling artists in music history, and easily one of rap's biggest crossover successes.

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