Eminem

Eminem is the stage name of Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), one of today's most controversial and popular hip hop musicians.

He is perhaps best known for being one of the few successful white rappers in the industry, not to mention one of the most critically acclaimed. He is also infamous for the controversy surrounding many of his lyrics, which are said by critics to be homophobic, misogynistic and excessively violent.

Early life and career

Mathers was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri and spent most of his childhood moving back and forth between Saint Joseph and suburban Detroit, Michigan.

Interested in rap from a young age, Mathers began performing as early as thirteen, later gaining some popularity with a group, Soul Intent. His wife Kim gave birth to his daughter, Hailie Jade, on 25 December 1995. In 1996, he released his first independent album, named Infinite, following it up with The Slim Shady EP in 1997. He became famous in the hip-hop underground because of his distinctive, cartoonish style and the fact that he is white (a rarity in all rap, especially mainstream gangsta rap). Some people called him rap's "great white hope".

It is said that Dr. Dre found Eminem's demo on the garage floor of Jimmy Iovine, the Interscope label chief. Though this did not directly lead to a recording contract, once Eminem won second place vs. Otherwize at the 1997 Rap Olympics MC battle, Dr. Dre agreed to sign him.

Entering the mainstream

Once he joined Interscope, Eminem released The Slim Shady LP, which went on to be one of the most popular records of the year, going triple platinum. With the album's enormous popularity came controversy surrounding many of the album's lyrics. In "97 Bonnie and Clyde", Eminem describes a trip with his infant daughter, disposing of the bodies of his wife, her lover and his son. Another song, "Guilty Conscience" ends with Eminem and Dr. Dre encouraging a man to murder his wife and her lover.

The Marshall Mathers LP was released in May 2000, quickly selling 2 million copies. The first single released from the album, "The Real Slim Shady", created some buzz by trash-talking celebrities and spilling dubious gossip about them. In the song, Eminem claims, among other things, that Christina Aguilera gave "head" (oral sex) to Fred Durst (of Limp Bizkit) and Carson Daly (of MTV's Total Request Live). In the third single, "Stan" (which samples Dido's "Thank You"), Eminem attempts to deal with his new fame status, telling the story of a fan so obsessed with him that he winds up killing himself and his pregnant girlfriend, mirroring one of the songs on The Slim Shady LP.

Backlash

With the enormous popularity of Eminem's second album, the controversy surrounding Eminem grew even larger, especially when The Marshall Mathers LP was nominated for a Grammy for Album of the Year. Though Mathers had always claimed that his lyrics were not meant to be taken seriously, and that he had nothing against homosexuals or women, the gay rights group GLAAD organized a boycott of the Grammys against Eminem. Mathers responded to this by singing "Stan" on-stage with openly-gay singer Elton John, ending the performance by hugging John to show that he didn't have anything against homosexuals. Though shocking a lot of people, this gesture failed to appease all of his critics.

Since Eminem's rapid ascent to fame, tell-all biographies of varying quality have been published, including Shady Bizzness by his former bodyguard Byron Williams. Eminem himself has written a book called Angry Blonde (2001), where he reveals the emotions and intent behind the lyrics in the Marshall Mathers LP, and describes his passion and approach to rapping.

As one of six members of the rap group D12, Eminem appeared on the album Devil's Night, released in 2001. The album was certified multi-platinum. The album contained the single "Purple Pills". Another song, "Blow My Buzz", was on the soundtrack for the film The Wash (2001), in which Eminem had a cameo.

Eminem's third major album, The Eminem Show was released in summer 2002. It featured the single "Without Me", an apparent sequel to "The Real Slim Shady" in which he makes derogatory comments about boy bands, Moby, and Lynne Cheney, among others.

On November 19th, 2003 new controversy surrounded Eminem when a cassette tape was played during a press conference held by The Source magazine. The 1988 cassette featured a younger Mathers performing a freestyle rap in which he made disparaging remarks about black women, calling them "stupid" in comparison to white women. Mathers reportedly made the recording after breaking up with his black girlfriend.

On December 8, 2003, the United States Secret Service admitted it was "looking into" allegations that Mathers had threatened the President of the United States after the unreleased song "We as Americans" leaked onto the Internet. The lyrics in question: Fuck money/I don't rap for dead presidents/ I'd rather see the president dead/ It's never been said, but I set precedents.

Then, in 2004, Eminem made the video "My Band" with D12. The controversial song was the band's sarcastic response to the media's frequent portrayal of D12 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." [1] (http://www.allhiphop.com/hiphopnews/?ID=3606)

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. [2] (http://www.mtv.com/onair/trl/top10/) 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. [3] (http://www.sohh.com/thewire/read.php?contentID=6321)

Others dismissed "Just Lose It" as a tame Weird Al Yankovic-style knockoff [4] (http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,15126,00.html). 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 "fuck 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. After Bush won the election, the video's ending was changed to Eminem and the rioters invading while Bush was giving a speech. 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 debuted 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, D12, DJ Green Lantern, Stat Quo, and Obie Trice.

Eminem as a producer

Eminem is also active as a producer of rap records. Besides D12's two albums, Devil's Night and D12 World, he also produced Obie Trice's Cheers as well as 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin'. Furthermore, his own records increasingly contain tracks produced by himself. He recently produced 2Pac's fifth posthumous album, Loyal to the Game.

Samples

  • Download sample of "Kill You" from The Marshall Mathers LP.

Music videos

  • The Slim Shady LP:
    • Just Don't Give A Fuck
    • Role Model
    • My Name Is...
    • Guilty Conscience
  • Chronic 2001 (with Dr Dre):
    • Forgot About Dre
  • The Marshall Mathers LP:
    • The Real Slim Shady
    • The Way I Am
    • Stan (samples "Thank You" by Dido)
  • Devil's Night (with D12):
    • Shit On You
    • Purple Hills (or Purple Pills, the album version)
    • Fight Music
  • The Eminem Show:
    • Without Me
    • Cleaning Out My Closet
    • White America
    • Sing For The Moment (samples "Dream On" by Aerosmith)
    • Superman (on 8 Mile DVD only)
    • Business (live performance)
  • 8 Mile O.S.T.:
    • Lose Yourself
  • D12 World (with D12):
    • My Band
    • 40 Oz.
    • How Come
    • Git Up
    • U R The One
  • Encore:
    • Just Lose It
    • Mosh
    • Like Toy Soldiers (samples "Toy Soldiers" by Martika)
    • Mockingbird

Solo discography

Albums and EPs

  • Infinite (1996)
  • The Slim Shady EP (1997)
  • The Slim Shady LP (1999) #2 US (4X Platinum); #12 UK
  • The Marshall Mathers LP (2000) #1 US (9X Platinum); #1 UK
  • The Eminem Show (2002) #1 US (8X Platinum); #1 UK
  • 8 Mile Soundtrack (2002) #1 US (2x Platinum)
  • Encore (2004) #1 US (4x Platinum); #1 UK

Hit singles

  • 1999 "My Name Is..." #1 US; #2 UK
  • 1999 "Guilty Conscience" (feat. Dr. Dre) #5 UK
  • 2000 "Forgot about Dre" (Dr. Dre feat. Eminem) #21 US; #7 UK
  • 2000 "The Real Slim Shady" #4 US; #1 UK; #1 EU; #1 GE
  • 2000 "The Way I Am" #58 US, #8 UK
  • 2000 "Stan" (feat. Dido) #1 US; #1 UK; #1 GER
  • 2002 "Without Me" #1 US; #1 UK
  • 2002 "Cleanin' out My Closet" #4 US; #4 UK; #1 GER
  • 2002 "Lose Yourself" #1 US; #1 UK; #1 GER
  • 2003 "Sing for the Moment" #8 US; #6 UK; #7 GER
  • 2003 "Superman" #15 US
  • 2003 "Business" #6 UK; #15 GER
  • 2004 "Just Lose It" #1 US; #1 UK; #1 GER; #1 EU
  • 2004 "Encore" #25 US
  • 2004 "Like Toy Soldiers" #1 US; #1 UK #1 EU; #1 GER
  • 2004 "Mockingbird" #1 US

He also had a few major hit singles and albums as part of D12.

Trivia

  • His performance of "The Real Slim Shady" and "The Way I Am" at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards while leading a procession of Eminem-lookalikes from the street outside up to the stage, is regarded as one of the best performances on the VMA's.
  • Eminem is a fan of fast food chain Taco Bell & Wendy's and frequently eats there while on tour and at home with his daughter and niece.
  • The second E in his stage name is always shown reversed on his records since his second album "The Marshall Mathers LP". The backwards-E has become a logo for him, appearing prominently in his videos and stage set.
  • He has been recognized as a huge influence on the music industry, and there has been two songs written about him by Christian rapper KJ-52, called 'Dear Slim' and 'Dear Slim Pt. 2'.

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He also had a few major hit singles and albums as part of D12. The group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2001. He recently produced 2Pac's fifth posthumous album, Loyal to the Game. In 1975 a court awarded Diodati the right to the name in a court suit in which the original members tried to establish their right. Furthermore, his own records increasingly contain tracks produced by himself. Eventually the group broke up, but Diodati still has a group which he calls the Four Aces, though it contains none of the original members. Besides D12's two albums, Devil's Night and D12 World, he also produced Obie Trice's Cheers as well as 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin'. He was replaced as lead singer by Fred Diodati, who had attended South Philadelphia High School a few years after Alberts.

Eminem is also active as a producer of rap records. Alberts, however, left the group in 1956 to try to make it as a soloist, but never made the charts. He also owns a clothing line called "Shady Ltd." and runs the music label Shady Records with signed artists including 50 Cent, D12, DJ Green Lantern, Stat Quo, and Obie Trice. They played locally in the Philadelphia area, and Alberts started his own record label, Victoria Records, when they could not find a distributor to release their first record, (It's No) Sin. It sold a million copies, and Decca Records soon signed the group, billing them as The Four Aces featuring Al Alberts.. Eminem signed a deal with Sirius satellite radio to program a hip-hop oriented station called Shade 45, which debuted on October 28, 2004. Originally, Alberts sang with Mahoney playing behind him, and later they added Vaccaro on trumpet and Silvestri on drums. 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. Alberts went to South Philadelphia High School, Temple University, and the United States Navy, where he met Mahoney.

He recorded several new songs for the soundtrack, including "Lose Yourself," which won Eminem an Academy Award for Best Song. The original members were Al Alberts (originally Albertini), Dave Mahoney, Lou Silvestri, and Rosario "Sol" Vaccaro. They all came from Chester, Pennsylvania. Eminem made his Hollywood acting debut with the semi-autobiographical 8 Mile, released in November 2002. The Four Aces were a pop singing group. On October 31, Eminem performed the song on Saturday Night Live, but some thought that he appeared to be lip-synching it. After Bush won the election, the video's ending was changed to Eminem and the rioters invading while Bush was giving a speech.

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. The video features Eminem gathering up an army of people presented as victims of the Bush administration and leading them to the White House. The song features a very strong anti-Bush message, with lyrics such as "fuck Bush" and "this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president". presidential election, 2004, Eminem released the video for his song titled "Mosh" on the Internet.

On October 26, 2004 a week before the U.S. So the irony of this situation with Michael is not lost on me.". 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. Others dismissed "Just Lose It" as a tame Weird Al Yankovic-style knockoff [4] (http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,15126,00.html).

[3] (http://www.sohh.com/thewire/read.php?contentID=6321). [2] (http://www.mtv.com/onair/trl/top10/) 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. 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. Black Entertainment Television was the first channel to stop airing the video.

We want the pass back." [1] (http://www.allhiphop.com/hiphopnews/?ID=3606). Harvey himself declared, "Eminem has lost his ghetto pass. In the video, Eminem also parodied Pee Wee Herman, MC Hammer, and a Blonde-Ambition-touring Madonna. The lyrics to "Just Lose It" also refer to Jackson's troubles.

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 video contained various parodies, including that of the Janet Jackson 'incident', and of 50 Cent's "In Da Club" video. The controversial song was the band's sarcastic response to the media's frequent portrayal of D12 as Eminem's band, giving little to no credit to its other members. Then, in 2004, Eminem made the video "My Band" with D12.

The lyrics in question: Fuck money/I don't rap for dead presidents/ I'd rather see the president dead/ It's never been said, but I set precedents. On December 8, 2003, the United States Secret Service admitted it was "looking into" allegations that Mathers had threatened the President of the United States after the unreleased song "We as Americans" leaked onto the Internet. Mathers reportedly made the recording after breaking up with his black girlfriend. The 1988 cassette featured a younger Mathers performing a freestyle rap in which he made disparaging remarks about black women, calling them "stupid" in comparison to white women.

On November 19th, 2003 new controversy surrounded Eminem when a cassette tape was played during a press conference held by The Source magazine. It featured the single "Without Me", an apparent sequel to "The Real Slim Shady" in which he makes derogatory comments about boy bands, Moby, and Lynne Cheney, among others. Eminem's third major album, The Eminem Show was released in summer 2002. Another song, "Blow My Buzz", was on the soundtrack for the film The Wash (2001), in which Eminem had a cameo.

The album contained the single "Purple Pills". The album was certified multi-platinum. As one of six members of the rap group D12, Eminem appeared on the album Devil's Night, released in 2001. Eminem himself has written a book called Angry Blonde (2001), where he reveals the emotions and intent behind the lyrics in the Marshall Mathers LP, and describes his passion and approach to rapping.

Since Eminem's rapid ascent to fame, tell-all biographies of varying quality have been published, including Shady Bizzness by his former bodyguard Byron Williams. Though shocking a lot of people, this gesture failed to appease all of his critics. Though Mathers had always claimed that his lyrics were not meant to be taken seriously, and that he had nothing against homosexuals or women, the gay rights group GLAAD organized a boycott of the Grammys against Eminem. Mathers responded to this by singing "Stan" on-stage with openly-gay singer Elton John, ending the performance by hugging John to show that he didn't have anything against homosexuals. With the enormous popularity of Eminem's second album, the controversy surrounding Eminem grew even larger, especially when The Marshall Mathers LP was nominated for a Grammy for Album of the Year.

In the third single, "Stan" (which samples Dido's "Thank You"), Eminem attempts to deal with his new fame status, telling the story of a fan so obsessed with him that he winds up killing himself and his pregnant girlfriend, mirroring one of the songs on The Slim Shady LP. In the song, Eminem claims, among other things, that Christina Aguilera gave "head" (oral sex) to Fred Durst (of Limp Bizkit) and Carson Daly (of MTV's Total Request Live). The first single released from the album, "The Real Slim Shady", created some buzz by trash-talking celebrities and spilling dubious gossip about them. The Marshall Mathers LP was released in May 2000, quickly selling 2 million copies.

Dre encouraging a man to murder his wife and her lover. Another song, "Guilty Conscience" ends with Eminem and Dr. In "97 Bonnie and Clyde", Eminem describes a trip with his infant daughter, disposing of the bodies of his wife, her lover and his son. With the album's enormous popularity came controversy surrounding many of the album's lyrics.

Once he joined Interscope, Eminem released The Slim Shady LP, which went on to be one of the most popular records of the year, going triple platinum. Dre agreed to sign him. Otherwize at the 1997 Rap Olympics MC battle, Dr. Though this did not directly lead to a recording contract, once Eminem won second place vs.

Dre found Eminem's demo on the garage floor of Jimmy Iovine, the Interscope label chief. It is said that Dr. Some people called him rap's "great white hope". He became famous in the hip-hop underground because of his distinctive, cartoonish style and the fact that he is white (a rarity in all rap, especially mainstream gangsta rap).

In 1996, he released his first independent album, named Infinite, following it up with The Slim Shady EP in 1997. His wife Kim gave birth to his daughter, Hailie Jade, on 25 December 1995. Interested in rap from a young age, Mathers began performing as early as thirteen, later gaining some popularity with a group, Soul Intent. Mathers was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri and spent most of his childhood moving back and forth between Saint Joseph and suburban Detroit, Michigan.

He is also infamous for the controversy surrounding many of his lyrics, which are said by critics to be homophobic, misogynistic and excessively violent. He is perhaps best known for being one of the few successful white rappers in the industry, not to mention one of the most critically acclaimed. Eminem is the stage name of Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), one of today's most controversial and popular hip hop musicians. 2'.

He has been recognized as a huge influence on the music industry, and there has been two songs written about him by Christian rapper KJ-52, called 'Dear Slim' and 'Dear Slim Pt. The backwards-E has become a logo for him, appearing prominently in his videos and stage set. The second E in his stage name is always shown reversed on his records since his second album "The Marshall Mathers LP". Eminem is a fan of fast food chain Taco Bell & Wendy's and frequently eats there while on tour and at home with his daughter and niece.

His performance of "The Real Slim Shady" and "The Way I Am" at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards while leading a procession of Eminem-lookalikes from the street outside up to the stage, is regarded as one of the best performances on the VMA's. 2004 "Mockingbird" #1 US. 2004 "Like Toy Soldiers" #1 US; #1 UK #1 EU; #1 GER. 2004 "Encore" #25 US.

2004 "Just Lose It" #1 US; #1 UK; #1 GER; #1 EU. 2003 "Business" #6 UK; #15 GER. 2003 "Superman" #15 US. 2003 "Sing for the Moment" #8 US; #6 UK; #7 GER.

2002 "Lose Yourself" #1 US; #1 UK; #1 GER. 2002 "Cleanin' out My Closet" #4 US; #4 UK; #1 GER. 2002 "Without Me" #1 US; #1 UK. Dido) #1 US; #1 UK; #1 GER.

2000 "Stan" (feat. 2000 "The Way I Am" #58 US, #8 UK. 2000 "The Real Slim Shady" #4 US; #1 UK; #1 EU; #1 GE. Eminem) #21 US; #7 UK.

Dre feat. 2000 "Forgot about Dre" (Dr. Dre) #5 UK. Dr.

1999 "Guilty Conscience" (feat. 1999 "My Name Is..." #1 US; #2 UK. Encore (2004) #1 US (4x Platinum); #1 UK. 8 Mile Soundtrack (2002) #1 US (2x Platinum).

The Eminem Show (2002) #1 US (8X Platinum); #1 UK. The Marshall Mathers LP (2000) #1 US (9X Platinum); #1 UK. The Slim Shady LP (1999) #2 US (4X Platinum); #12 UK. The Slim Shady EP (1997).

Infinite (1996). Mockingbird. Like Toy Soldiers (samples "Toy Soldiers" by Martika). Mosh.

Just Lose It. Encore:

    . U R The One. Git Up.

    How Come. 40 Oz. My Band. D12 World (with D12):

      .

      Lose Yourself. 8 Mile O.S.T.:

        . Business (live performance). Superman (on 8 Mile DVD only).

        Sing For The Moment (samples "Dream On" by Aerosmith). White America. Cleaning Out My Closet. Without Me.

        The Eminem Show:

          . Fight Music. Purple Hills (or Purple Pills, the album version). Shit On You.

          Devil's Night (with D12):

            . Stan (samples "Thank You" by Dido). The Way I Am. The Real Slim Shady.

            The Marshall Mathers LP:

              . Forgot About Dre. Chronic 2001 (with Dr Dre):
                . Guilty Conscience.

                My Name Is... Role Model. Just Don't Give A Fuck. The Slim Shady LP:

                  .

                  Download sample of "Kill You" from The Marshall Mathers LP.