The Marshall Mathers LP and his third album, The Eminem Show, also won Grammy Awards, making Eminem the first artist to win Best Rap Album for three consecutive LPs. He then won the award again in 2010 for his album Relapse, giving him a total of 11 Grammys in his career. In 2003, he won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Lose Yourself" from the film, 8 Mile, in which he also played the lead. "Lose Yourself" would go on to become the longest running No. 1 hip-hop single.[3] Eminem then went on hiatus after touring in 2005. He released his first album since 2004's Encore, titled Relapse, on May 15, 2009. Eminem is the best-selling artist of the decade on the US Nielsen SoundScan,[4] and has sold more than 80 million albums worldwide to date, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world.[5] In 2010, Eminem released his seventh studio album Recovery. It became Eminem's sixth consecutive number-one album in the US and achieved international commercial success, charting at number one in several other countries. It stayed at number-one on the US Billboard 200 chart for five consecutive weeks.[6]
Eminem was ranked 79th on the VH1 100 Greatest Artists of All-Time.[7] He was also ranked 82nd on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[8] He was also named the Best Rapper Alive by Vibe magazine in 2008.[9] Including his work with D12, Eminem has achieved nine No. 1 albums on the Billboard Top 200, 7 solo (6 studio albums, 1 compilation) and 2 with D12.[10] Eminem has had 13 number one singles worldwide. In December 2009, Eminem was named the Artist of the Decade by Billboard magazine.[11] His albums The Eminem Show, The Marshall Mathers LP, and Encore (in order) ranked as the 3rd,[12] 7th,[12] and 40th[13] best-selling albums of the 2000–2009 decade by Billboard magazine. According to Billboard, Eminem has two of his albums among the top five highest selling albums of the 2000s. In the UK, Eminem has sold over 12.5 million records.[14]
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Early life
Eminem was born Marshall Bruce Mathers III on October 17, 1972 in Saint Joseph, Missouri, the only child of Deborah Nelson Mathers-Briggs and Marshall Bruce Mathers, Jr.[15] He is of Scottish,[16] Welsh, English, German, Swiss, Polish, and possibly Luxembourg ancestry.[17] His father abandoned the family when he was 18 months old, and he was raised solely by his mother in poverty. By the age of 12, Mathers and his mother had moved between various cities and towns in Missouri (including Saint Joseph, Savannah, and Kansas City)[18] before they settled in Warren, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.After procuring a copy of the Beastie Boys album Licensed to Ill as a teenager, Mathers became interested in hip hop, performing amateur raps at age 14 under the pseudonym "M&M" and joining the group called "Bassmint Productions" and released their first EP, Steppin' Onto The Scene. They later changed their name to "Soul Intent" and around 1995 they released their first single called "Fuckin' Backstabber" under the record label Mashin' Duck Records.[1] Although he was enrolled at Lincoln High School in Warren, he frequently participated in freestyle battles at the now-defunct Osborn High School on Detroit's east side.[19] Despite a well-documented struggle succeeding in a predominantly African-American industry, he gained the approval of underground hip hop audiences.[1][15][20] After repeating the ninth grade twice due to truancy and near-failing grades,[21] he dropped out of high school at age 17.
In 1991, Mathers' maternal uncle, Ronald "Ronnie" Nelson, committed suicide via shotgun wound to the head. Mathers was very close to his uncle, and was devastated at his death; today, he sports a tattoo reading "Ronnie R.I.P." on his upper left arm.[22]
Musical career
1992–1998: Early career and Infinite
See also: Infinite (Eminem album)
Mathers was initially signed to FBT Productions in 1992, run by brothers Jeff and Mark Bass. Mathers also held a minimum-wage job of cooking and dishwashing at the restaurant Gilbert's Lodge at St. Clair Shores for some time.[23] In 1996, his debut album Infinite, which was recorded at the Bassmint, a recording studio owned by the Bass Brothers, was released under their independent label Web Entertainment.[24] Eminem recalled, "Obviously, I was young and influenced by other artists, and I got a lot of feedback saying that I sounded like Nas and AZ. 'Infinite' was me trying to figure out how I wanted my rap style to be, how I wanted to sound on the mic and present myself. It was a growing stage. I felt like 'Infinite' was like a demo that just got pressed up."[25] Subjects covered in Infinite included his struggles with raising his newborn daughter Hailie Jade Scott while on limited funds and his strong desire to get rich.[26] Early in his career, Eminem collaborated with fellow Detroit MC Royce da 5'9" under the stage name Bad Meets Evil.[27] After the release of Infinite, Eminem's personal struggles and abuse of drugs and alcohol culminated in an unsuccessful suicide attempt.[1]With the release of The Slim Shady EP, Mathers was accused of imitating the style and subject matter of underground rapper Cage.[28][29]
Jimmy Iovine, CEO of Interscope Records, requested a demo tape of Eminem's after Eminem placed second at the 1997 Rap Olympics. Eminem had also won Wake Up Show's Freestyle Performer Of The Year award helping him acquire a record deal.[30] Iovine played the tape for record producer Dr. Dre, founder of Aftermath Entertainment. The two began recording tracks for Eminem's upcoming major-label debut The Slim Shady LP, and Eminem made a guest performance on the album Devil Without a Cause by Kid Rock.[1] Hip-hop magazine The Source featured Eminem in its "Unsigned Hype" column in March 1998.[31]
1997–1999: The Slim Shady LP
Main article: The Slim Shady LP
According to Billboard Magazine, at this point in his life Eminem had "realized his musical ambitions were the only way to escape his unhappy life". After being signed to Aftermath Entertainment/Interscope Records in 1998, Eminem released his first major studio album, The Slim Shady LP, heavily based on the production by Dr. Dre, one year later in 1999. Billboard praised the album as "light years ahead of the material he had been writing beforehand".[32] It went on to be one of the most popular albums of 1999, going triple platinum by the end of the year.[33] With the album's popularity came controversy surrounding many of the album's lyrics. In "'97 Bonnie and Clyde", he describes a trip with his infant daughter, disposing of his wife's body. Another song, "Guilty Conscience", ends with his encouraging a man to murder his wife and her lover. "Guilty Conscience" marked the beginning of the friendship and musical bond that Dr. Dre and Eminem would share. The two label-mates would later collaborate on a line of hit songs, including "Forgot About Dre" and "What's the Difference" from Dr. Dre's album 2001, "Bitch Please II" from The Marshall Mathers LP, "Say What You Say" from The Eminem Show, "Encore/Curtains Down" from Encore and "Old Time's Sake" and "Crack a Bottle" from Relapse. Dr. Dre would go on to make at least one guest appearance on all of Eminem's studio albums under the label Aftermath.[34] The album has now been certified 4 times platinum by the RIAA.
2000–2001: The Marshall Mathers LP
Main article: The Marshall Mathers LP
The Marshall Mathers LP was released in May 2000. It went on to sell 1.76 million copies in its first week, breaking the records set by Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle as the fastest-selling hip hop album and Britney Spears' ...Baby One More Time as the fastest-selling solo album in United States history.[2][35] The first single released from the album, "The Real Slim Shady", was a success and created some controversy by insulting celebrities and making dubious claims about them; he states, among other things, that Christina Aguilera performed oral sex on Fred Durst and Carson Daly.[36] In his second single, "The Way I Am", he reveals to his fans the pressures from his record company to top "My Name Is" and sell more records. Although Eminem had parodied shock rocker Marilyn Manson in the video "My Name Is", the artists are reportedly on good terms. They performed a remix of the song "The Way I Am" together in concert.[37] In the third single, "Stan" (which samples Dido's "Thank You"), Eminem attempts to deal with his new-found fame, taking on the persona of a deranged fan who kills himself and his pregnant girlfriend, mirroring "'97 Bonnie & Clyde" on The Slim Shady LP.[15] In the music video of "Stan", Eminem was shown writing with his left hand, ending the fan debate over his dominant hand. Q magazine named "Stan" the third-greatest rap song of all time,[38] and the song came tenth in a similar survey conducted by Top40-Charts.com.[39] The song has since become highly acclaimed and was ranked 290th in Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list.[40] In July 2000, Eminem became the first white person to be featured on the cover of The Source magazine.[31] This album has been certified 9x platinum by the RIAA.Eminem performed with Elton John at the 43rd Grammy Awards ceremony in 2001;[41] the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), an organization that perceived Eminem's lyrics to be homophobic, condemned the openly gay John's decision to perform with Eminem.[42] Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "It was the hug heard 'round the world. Eminem, under fire for homophobic lyrics, shared the stage with a gay icon for a performance of "Stan" that would have been memorable in any context."[43] On February 21, the day of the ceremony, GLAAD held a protest outside the Staples Center, the venue where the Grammy ceremony was held.[44] Music tours that he participated in for 2001 included the Up In Smoke Tour with rappers Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Xzibit, and Ice Cube[45] and Family Values Tour with the band Limp Bizkit.[46]
