Marshall Bruce Mathers III, 17 October 1973, Kansas City,
Missouri, USA. This white rapper burst onto the US charts in
1999 with a controversial take on the horrorcore genre. Mathers
endured an itinerant childhood, living with his mother in various
states before eventually ending up in Detroit at the age of
12. He took up rapping in high school before dropping out in
ninth grade, joining ad hoc groups Basement Productions, the
New Jacks, and D12. The newly named Eminem released a raw debut
album in 1997 through independent label FBT. Infinite was poorly
received, however, with Eminem earning unfavourable comparisons
to leading rappers such as Nas and AZ. His determination to
succeed was given a boost by a prominent feature in Source's
Unsigned Hype column, and he gained revenge on his former critics
when he won the Wake Up Show's Freestyle Performer Of The Year
award, and finished runner-up in Los Angeles' annual Rap Olympics.
The following year's The Slim Shady EP, named after his sinister
alter-ego, featured some vitriolic attacks on his detractors.
The stand-out track, "Just Don't Give A Fuck", became
a highly popular underground hit, and led to guest appearances
on MC Shabaam Sahddeq's "Five Star Generals" single
and Kid Rock's Devil Without A Cause set.
As a result, Eminem was signed to Aftermath Records by label
boss Dr. Dre, who adopted the young rapper as his prot‚g‚
and acted as co-producer on Eminem's full-length debut. Dre's
beats featured prominently on The Slim Shady LP, a provocative
feast of violent, twisted lyrics, with a moral outlook partially
redeemed by Eminem's claim to be only "voicing" the
thoughts of the Slim Shady character. Parody or no parody, lyrics
to tracks such as "97 Bonnie & Clyde" (which contained
lines about killing the mother of his child) and frequent verbal
outbursts about his mother were held by many, outside even the
usual Christian moral majority, to be deeply irresponsible.
The album was buoyed by the commercial success of the singles
"My Name Is" and "Guilty Conscience" (the
former helped by a striking, MTV -friendly video), and climbed
to number 2 on the US album chart in March 1999. Eminem subsequently
made high profile appearances on Rawkus Records' Soundbombing
Volume 2 compilation and Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott's
Da Real World.
He was
also in the news when his mother filed a lawsuit claiming
that comments made by the rapper during interviews and on
the Slim Shady LP had caused, amongst other things, emotional
distress, damage to her reputation and loss of self-esteem.
None of which harmed the sales of Eminem's follow-up album,
The Marshall Mathers LP, which debuted at number 1 on the
US album chart in May 2000 and established him as the most
successful rapper since the mid-90s heyday of 2Pac and Snoop
Doggy Dogg. By the end of the year, however, his troubled
personal life and a serious assault charge had removed the
gloss from his phenomenal commercial success. Despite criticism
from gay rights groups, the rapper swept up three Grammy Awards
the following February. He also reunited with his D12 colleagues
to record the transatlantic chart-topping Devil's Night.
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