| Born Marshall Mathers, Kansas City, USA, this white rapper burst into the US charts in 1999 with a contraversial take on the horrorcore genre. Mathers endured an itinerant childhood, living with his mother in various US states before eventually ending up in Detroit at the age of 12. He took up rapping in high school before dropping out in 9th grade, joining ad hoc groups Basement Productions and the New Jacks, and, later, the duo Soul Intent. The newly christened Eminem released a raw debut album in 1997 through independant label FBT. Infinite was poorely recieved, however, with Eminem earning unfavorable 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, where he gained revenge on his former critics when he won the Wake UP shows "freestyle performer of the year award" and finished runner up in the Los Angeles annual RAP olympics. The following year's The Slim Shady EP featured some victiolic attacts on his detractors. The stand out track, " I just dont give a f--k" became a highly popular underground hit and led to guest appearences on MC Shabaam Sahddeq's "Five star Generals" single and Kid Rocks "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 protege and acted as co-producer on Eminems full length debut. Dre's beats featured prominantly on the Slim Shady LP, a provocative feast of violant, twisted lyrics, with a moral outlook partially redeemed by Eminems claim to be only "voicing" the thoughts of the Slim Shady character. Parody or no parody lyrics to tracks such as "97 bonnie and 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 concience" (the former helped by a striking MTV friendly video), and climbed to number 2 on the US album charts in March 1999. Eminem subsiquentely made high profile appearences on Rawkus Records "sound bombing volume2" compilation and Missy Elliots "Da real world". He was also in the news when his mother filed a lawsuit claiming the comments made by the rapper during interviewsand on "the Slim Shady" album had caused, amongst other things, emotional distress, damage to her reputation and loss of self esteem. None of which harmed the sales of Eminems follow up album, The Marshall Mathers LP which debuted at no 1 on the US album charts in May 2000 and established him as the most successful rapper since the mid 90s heyday of 2pac and snoop doggy dog. By the end of the year, however, his troubled personal life and a serious assault charge had removed the gloss from his phenominal commercial success |
