Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), known professionally as Eminem, (formerly stylized as EMINƎM) is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, actor. In addition to his solo career, Eminem was a member of the hip hop group D12. He is also known for collaborations with fellow Detroit-based rapper Royce da 5'9"; the two are collectively known as Bad Meets Evil.
He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with over 220 million records sold worldwide. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time and is credited with popularizing hip hop in Middle America, Eminem's worldwide success and critically acclaimed work are widely regarded as breaking down racial barriers for the acceptance of white rappers in popular music. While much of his transgressive work during the late 1990s and early 2000s made him widely controversial, he came to be a representation of popular angst of the American underclass and has been cited as an influence for many artists of various genres.
Billboard named him the "Artist of the Decade (2000–2009)". He has had ten number-one albums on the Billboard 200—which all consecutively debuted at number one on the chart, making him the first artist to achieve this—and five number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. The Marshall Mathers LP, The Eminem Show, Curtain Call: The Hits (2005), "Lose Yourself", "Love the Way You Lie" and "Not Afraid" have all been certified Diamond or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Rolling Stone has included him in its lists of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time.
He has won numerous awards, including 15 Grammy Awards, 8 American Music Awards, 17 Billboard Music Awards, an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and an MTV Europe Music Global Icon Award. In November 2022, Eminem was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
He has also developed other ventures, including Shady Records, a joint venture with manager Paul Rosenberg, which helped launch the careers of artists such as 50 Cent, D12 and Obie Trice, among others. He has also established his own channel, Shade 45, on Sirius XM Radio.
Eminem made his major film debut as a fictionalized version of himself in the musical drama film 8 Mile (2002), and his song "Lose Yourself" from the soundtrack won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, making him the first hip hop artist to do so.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Marshall Bruce Mathers III was born on October 17, 1972, in St. Joseph, Missouri, the only child of Marshall Bruce Mathers Jr. and Deborah Rae "Debbie" (née Nelson). He is of English, Scottish, German, German Swiss, Polish and Luxembourgish ancestry.
Eminem's parents were in a band called Daddy Warbucks, playing in Ramada Inns along the Dakotas-Montana border before they separated. Eminem's father, Bruce Jr., left the family, moving to California after having two other children: Michael and Sarah. His mother, Debbie, later had a son named Nathan "Nate" Kane Samara. As a teenager, Eminem wrote letters to his father. Debbie said that they all came back marked "return to sender".
During his childhood, Eminem and his mother shuttled between Detroit, Michigan and Missouri, rarely staying in one house for more than a year or two and living primarily with family members. In Missouri, they lived in several places, including St. Joseph, Savannah and Kansas City.
In Detroit Eminem and his mother lived for much of his youth in a working-class, primarily black, neighborhood. He and Debbie were one of three white households on their block, and Eminem was beaten several times by black youths. When he was a child, a bully named D'Angelo Bailey severely injured Eminem's head in an assault, an incident which Eminem later recounted (with comic exaggeration) on the song "Brain Damage". Debbie filed a lawsuit against the public school for this in 1982. The suit was dismissed the following year by a Macomb County judge, who said the schools were immune from lawsuits. Eminem's home life was seldom stable; he frequently fought with his mother, whom a social worker described as having a "very suspicious, almost paranoid personality". When her son became famous, Debbie dismissed criticism, saying that she had sheltered him and was responsible for his success.
As a child, he was interested in storytelling, aspiring to be a comic book artist before discovering hip hop. Eminem heard his first rap song Ice-T's Reckless" on the Breakin soundtrack, a gift from Debbie's half-brother Ronnie Polkingharn. His uncle was close to the boy and later became a musical mentor to him. When Ronnie committed suicide in 1991, Eminem stopped speaking publicly for days and did not attend his funeral.
At age 14, Eminem began rapping with high-school friend Mike Ruby; he adopted the names "M&M", the latter evolving into "Eminem". Eminem meet on steps neighboring Osborn High School fellow rapper Proof, who latter become his best friend and later he sneaked into it with him for lunchroom freestyle rap battles. On Saturdays, they attended open mic contests at the Hip-Hop Shop on West 7 Mile Road, considered "ground zero" for the Detroit rap scene. Struggling to succeed in a predominantly black industry, Eminem was appreciated by underground hip hop audiences. When he wrote verses, he wanted most of the words to rhyme; he wrote long words or phrases on paper and, underneath, worked on rhymes for each syllable. Although the words often made little sense, the drill helped Eminem practice sounds and rhymes.
After spending three years in ninth grade due to truancy and poor grades, he dropped out of Lincoln High School at age 17. Although interested in English, Eminem never explored literature (preferring comic books) and he disliked math and social studies. Eminem worked at several jobs to help his mother pay the bills. One of the jobs he had was with Little Caesar's Pizzall in Warren, Michigan.[1] He later said his mother often threw him out of the house anyway, often after taking most of his paycheck. When she left to play bingo, he would blast the stereo and write songs.
In 1987, Debbie allowed runaway Kimberly Anne "Kim" Scott to stay at their home. Several years later, Eminem began an on-and-off relationship with Scott.
Eminem's Career Through out the Years[]
1988 to 1999[]
In 1988, he performed as "MC Double M", formed his first group "New Jacks", and released a self-titled demo tape with DJ Butter Fingers. He later joined Bassmint Productions in 1989, which later changed its name to "Soul Intent" in 1992.
Eminem's first album, Infinite, was a commercial failure upon its release in 1996. The lyrics of the album were inspired by his struggle to raise his newborn daughter on little money. Eminem cooked and washed dishes for minimum wage at Gilbert's Lodge, a family-style restaurant at St. Clair Shores, Michigan. By March 1997 he was fired from the restaurant and lived in his mother's mobile home with Kim and Hailie. He tried to commit suicide after the release of Infinite, Eminem's debut EP, the Slim Shady EP, was released in 1997 by Web Entertainment. The character allowed him to express his anger with lyrics about drugs, rape, and murder.
In 1998 he worked with Dr. Dre on his first album, which was later released by Interscope Records.
1999 - 2006[]
In February 1999, Eminem released The Slim Shady LP, which became one of the year's most popular albums. The album's success was accompanied by backlash over its lyrics. Eminem describes a trip with his infant daughter when he disposes of his wife's body in "'97 Bonnie and Clyde" Dr. Dre and Eminem's friendship and musical relationship began with "Guilty Conscience" Later, the labelmates worked together on a number of hit songs, including "Forgot About Dre" and "What's the Difference"
The Marshall Mathers LP was released in May 2000. Despite controversies surrounding Eminem's insults and dubious claims about celebrities, the first single, "The Real Slim Shady," was a success (for example, Christina Aguilera had performed oral sex on Fred Durst and Carson Daly) In his second single, he discusses the pressure from his record label to outdo "My Name Is." Despite the fact that Eminem parodied shock rocker Marilyn Manson in the music video for "My name is," the two are reportedly on good terms; Manson is mentioned in "The Way I Am," appears in the music video, and has performed a remix of the song with Eminem. The Eminem Show, which was released in May 2002.
Marshall Mathers LP.
Eminem's video for "Just Lose It" mocks Michael Jackson's child molestation trial, plastic surgery, and the 1984 incident in which Jackson's hair caught fire while filming a commercial. "That's not a stab at Michael / That's just a metaphor / I'm just psycho," Eminem says in the song. In December 2003, the Secret Service stated that it was "looking into" allegations that Eminem had threatened the President of the United States. On October 12, 2004, a week after the release of the video, Jackson phoned Steve Harvey's radio show to report his displeasure with its video. Stevie Wonder, who described it as "kicking a man while he's down," and Steve Harvey (who said, "Weird Al" Yankovic, who parodied the video for his 2003 album Poodle Hat, told the Chicago Sun-Times about Jackson's protest: "The irony of this situation with Michael is not lost on me" Eminem released the anti-war song "Mosh" on October 25, 2004, a week before the 2004 US Presidential election. In it, Eminem gathers an army of Bush-administration victims and leads them to the White House.
2007-2014[]
In September 2007, Eminem stated that he was "in limbo" and "debating" the release of a new album. Eminem released two new albums in March 2009: Relapse and Relapse: Refill. Relapse was released on May 19; its first single and music video, "We Made You," was released on April 7. He headlined the Voodoo Experience in New Orleans on October 30, his first full performance of the year. Several songs from Relapse, as well as many of his older hits, were included in his set, Dr. Dre has released a new album, The Refill, which will be his final before the release of Relapse 2 next year. Dre has stated that he intends to provide more content to his fans this year, as he had previously stated. He claimed that after reuniting with Dre and a few other producers, including Just Blaze, he went in a completely different direction, forcing him to restart from scratch.
Recovery, Eminem's second studio album, was released on June 18, 2010. It was his sixth consecutive number-one album in the United States, and it was the best-selling album in the United States in 2010. The first single, "Not Afraid" debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and was quickly followed by "Love the Way You Lie" which debuted at number two before rising to the top. Despite criticism for its inconsistency, the majority of critics praised Recovery. As of November 21, 2010, the album had sold three million copies in the United States. With Recovery, Eminem broke the record for the most consecutive number one albums in the United States by a solo artist.
2014 - 2018[]
Eminem and Rosenberg started using the hashtag #SHADYXV on social media sites in the summer of 2014. This was later revealed to be the title of a compilation by Shady Records. Shady XV, released on November 24 during Black Friday week, contains one greatest hits disc and one disc of new material from artists such as D12, Slaughterhouse, Bad Meets Evil, and Yelawolf. The album debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 138,000 copies in its first week.
Eminem made an appearance on Tech N9ne's "Speedom (Worldwide Choppers 2)" on April 20, 2015. It was announced in June 2015 that he will serve as executive producer and music supervisor on the TV series Motor City. Eminem released a new song called "Campaign Speech," a political hip hop song, on October 19, 2016, and announced that he was working on a new album.
In February 2017, Eminem appeared on "No Favors" a track from Big Sean's “I Decided”. Eminem refers to newly elected President Donald Trump as a "bitch" in the song and raps about rapping conservative social and political commentator Ann Coulter with a variety of foreign objects. Eminem participated in the 2017 BET Hip Hop Awards' annual cypher, using his verse, a freestyle rap called "The Storm", to further criticize Trump and the administration for, among other things, Trump's focus on National Football League players' protests during "The Star Spangled Banner" over Hurricane Maria recovery efforts and lack of gun control reform in the wake of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. Eminem ended the cypher by giving an ultimatum saying that Trump supporters cannot be his fans.The verse received wide praise among other rappers following its release. In October 2017, Eminem appeared on "Revenge", a track from Pink's album Beautiful Trauma. It was reported that the Secret Service interviewed Eminem in 2018–2019, regarding threatening lyrics towards President Trump and daughter Ivanka.
Dr. Dre confirmed the album's release date as December 15, 2017 in a video posted on November 28. On November 12, the first single, "Walk on Water," featuring Beyoncé, was released. The song was first performed, by Eminem, at the 2017 MTV Europe Music Awards on November 12, featuring Skylar Grey.He appeared on Saturday Night Live on November 18, performing "Walk on Water", "Stan" and "Love the Way You Lie" with Skylar Grey. On November 28, Dr. Dre posted a video confirming the album's release date as December 15, 2017. On December 8, Eminem released a promotional single titled "Untouchable", which featured a sample from the duo Cheech & Chong.
Despite an online leak of the album two days prior, Revival was released as planned on December 15. On January 5, 2018, the second single "River" was released, which featured Ed Sheeran. It became Eminem's eighth consecutive album to top the US Billboard200 upon release with 197,000 copies sold in its first week. As a result, he became the first musical act to have eight entries in a row debut atop the chart.The album was met with mixed reviews from music critics and is generally considered his worst album.In 2018, an extended edition of "Nowhere Fast" with Kehlani and a remix of "Chloraseptic" featuring 2 Chainz and Phresher were released from Revival.
On August 31, 2018, Eminem released his tenth studio album and first surprise album Kamikaze, making it his second full-length studio album in 8 months. The album topped the Billboard 200, making it his ninth album in a row to do so, after selling 434,000 units in the first week. The album was released as a response to criticism of Revival, his worst rated album. The album was promoted with three singles: "Fall", "Venom", from the 2018 film of the same name and "Lucky You". During the October 15, 2018, episode of the late-night television show Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Eminem performed the song "Venom" at the 103rd floor of the Empire State Building in New York City as a promotion of the album.
On December 1, Eminem released an 11 minute freestyle to his YouTube channel titled “Kick off”. In addition, he has worked with artists such as Boogie, Logic, Ed Sheeran, 50 Cent, and Conway the Machine. On February 23, 2019, to celebrate its 20th anniversary, Eminem released a re-issue of The Slim Shady LP, including acapellas, instrumentals and radio edited versions of tracks from the album.
2020 - Present[]
“Music to Be Murdered By”, Eminem's third studio album, was released on January 17, 2020. Recorded from 2019 to 2020, the album features guest appearances by Young M.A., Royce da 5'9", Q-Tip, Denaun Porter, White Gold, Ed Sheeran, Juice WRLD, Skylar Grey, Anderson .Paak, Don Toliver, Kxng Crooked, Joell Ortiz and Black Thought. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 279,000 album-equivalent units in its first week. Subsequently, Eminem became the first artist to have ten consecutive albums debut at number one in the US and one of six artists to have released at least ten US number-one albums. Music critics praised Eminem's lyrical abilities and the improved production after Kamikaze, while criticism directed towards the album's formulaic song structure, lack of innovation and shock value. The lyrics of "Unaccommodating", in which Eminem referenced the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, drew significant criticism, with many critics finding the lyrics objectionable. The mayor of Manchester denounced the song's lyrics, describing them as "unnecessarily hurtful and deeply disrespectful". The lyrics also drew widespread criticism from victims' relatives and others involved in the attack.
On February 9, 2020, Mathers performed "Lose Yourself" at the 92nd Academy Awards. On March 9, 2020, the music video for the song "Godzilla" was released on YouTube through Lyrical Lemonade's channel. The video features Mike Tyson and Dr. Dre. As of October 8, 2022, the music video has over 520.9 million views. On March 11, 2020, Music to Be Murdered By was certified Gold.
Kid Cudi's daughter Vada announced on social media on July 9, 2020, that he was releasing a song with Eminem called "The Adventures of Moon Man & Slim Shady."
A deluxe edition of the album, titled Music to Be Murdered By – Side B, was released on December 18, 2020. Similar to Eminem's previous two albums, it was released without any prior announcement. It contains a bonus disc with sixteen new tracks, with guest appearances by Skylar Grey, DJ Premier, Ty Dolla Sign, Dr. Dre, Sly Pyper, MAJ and White Gold. The album's release was accompanied by a music video for "Gnat", directed by Cole Bennett. Lyric videos for "Alfred's Theme" and "Tone Deaf" were also released, in the latter song Mathers pays tribute to the late Chicago rapper King Von. Music to Be Murdered By – Side B debuted on the Billboard 200 at number 3, with 70,000–80,000 album-equivalent units, including 25,000–30,000 in pure album sales. In the track "Zeus", he apologizes to Rihanna over a leaked song from his Relapse studio sessions in which he sided with Chris Brown, who pleaded guilty to felony assault involving her in 2009.
Eminem featured in a song with Polo G and Mozzy called "Last One Standing" by Skylar Grey for the soundtrack of the film Venom: Let There Be Carnage, released on September 30, 2021. He performed alongside LL Cool J at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony on October 30. On February 13, 2022, Eminem performed at the Super Bowl LVI halftime show alongside Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, and Mary J. Blige, with surprise appearances from 50 Cent and Anderson. Paak.
Eminem and CeeLo Green collaborated on a new track titled "The King and I", produced by Dr. Dre for Baz Luhrmann's Elvis movie soundtrack. On June 24, 2022, Eminem and Snoop Dogg released a song entitled "From the D to the LBC" and reconciled. Eminem announced his second greatest hits album on July 11, 2022, entitled “Curtain Call 2”, which is a sequel to his first compilation “Curtain Call: The Hits”. The album covers his albums from Relapse to Music to be Murdered By, as well as collaborations and songs from movie soundtracks. It was released on August 5, 2022, and also includes "The King and I", "From the D 2 the LBC", and an additional new track named "Is This Love ('09)" featuring 50 Cent. On August 26, 2022, Eminem was featured alongside Kanye West on the remix of the song "Use This Gospel" on DJ Khaled's new album God Did. The remix was originally set to be released on West's shelved album Jesus Is King Part II. Eminem was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. He was presented by Dr. Dre and had special guest appearances by Aerosmith lead vocalist Steven Tyler and Ed Sheeran during his performance.
He produced Horseshoe G.A.N.G.'s song "Nice Me", featuring Kxng Crooked, released on February 10. This marked the third collaboration between Horseshoe and Eminem. Previous tracks produced by Eminem include "Hot Sauce", featuring Kxng Crooked, and "Liquor Store Church" freestyle. He also produced Nasaan's song "Vs Everybody", released on April 3, 2023.
In July 2023 Eminem's Shady Recordssigned Ez Mil in a direct joint deal with Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records. On August 4, 2023, Ez Mil released the song "Realest", featuring Eminem. In the song, Eminem responded to Melle Mel, who had claimed that Eminem is considered a top-five rapper of all time only because he is white.
On November 3, 2023, Eminem released The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (Expanded Edition), marking the 10th anniversary of its original release. The album includes all the original tracks, plus "Don’t Front", featuring Buckshot, which was a bonus track for anyone who ordered the Call of Duty: Ghosts and the album bundle. It was also a bonus track on the Best Buy version of the Shady XV compilation album. The expanded edition of MMLP2 also includes instrumentals of all the singles of the albums: "Survival", "Berzerk", "The Monster" (featuring Rihanna), "Rap God", and "Headlights".
Eminem featured on Lyrical Lemonade's song "Doomsday Pt. 2", it's was released on January 26, 2024, with a music video premiering on YouTube on March 13. The song features disses aimed at Benzino, who has had a long-time beef with Eminem, with lines like "I have a riddle, one condition you mustn't laugh. What is the opposite of Benzino? A giraffe". The disses are a response to Benzino's track "Rap Elvis".
During an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on March 19, 2024, Dr. Dre stated that Eminem intended to release a new album that year. On April 25, Eminem appeared alongside Roger Goodell at the opening ceremony of the 2024 NFL draft in Detroit. At the same time, Eminem announced a twelfth studio album entitled “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)”, with a planned release later in the year. The trailer for the album, which was shown on the NFL Network, briefly discusses the "murder" of the Slim Shady persona in a true crime format. 50 Cent is also featured in a cameo role. The album is produced by Dr. Dre and The ICU.
On May 28, 2024, the rapper posted a joint Instagram video with magician David Blaine. The video shows a video call between Eminem and Blaine, with the former asking for help and a magic trick to which the latter responds by eating a glass of wine. The rapper then previews the track "Houdini" by playing a short instrumental snippet. At the end of the clip, the song title and release date are revealed. It was released on May 31, 2024, as the lead single.