Eminem was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, the son of Deborah (née Nelson) and Marshall Bruce Mathers II, and is reportedly of Scottish, German, and English descent.[4] Shortly after his birth, his father walked out, leaving Debbie and Marshall alone. Until he was 12, he and his mother moved to and from between St. Joseph and Warren, Michigan, a Detroit suburb. As a teenager, he became interested in hip-hop, performing amateur raps at age 14 under the pseudonym "M&M" and joining the group Soul Intent around 1995, when his first single was released. Within the community, he frequently participated in freestyle battles.[1]

1995–1998: First releases

In 1995, he recorded his first official tape, Fuckin’ Backstabber/Soul Intent. In 1996, he released an independent underground album named Infinite.[1] Eminem recalls: "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."[5][6] Mathers followed Infinite with The Slim Shady EP, which saw his lyrics take a decidedly darker turn, in songs like "No One's Iller" and "Murder Murder", the latter of which he talks about having to commit crimes to feed his daughter. After this album he received much attention and mixed reviews in the hip-hop underground scene, due to his distinctive style.[1]

Mathers had done a notable amount of rapping with fellow Detroit MC Royce da 5'9" early in his career.[7] They referred to themselves as Bad Meets Evil, with Royce playing 'The Bad' and Eminem playing 'The Evil', as Eminem and Royce each clearly state in the song Bad Meets Evil.

1999-2000: The Slim Shady LP

Main article: The Slim Shady LP

After being signed to Aftermath Entertainment/Interscope Records, Eminem released The Slim Shady LP, which went on to be one of the most popular albums of 1999, going triple platinum by the end of the year.[8] 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 the body of his wife. Another song, "Guilty Conscience", ends with his encouraging a man to murder his wife and her lover. "Guilty Conscience" also marked the beginning of the powerful 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 and "Encore/Curtains Down" from Encore. Dr. Dre has made at least one guest appearance on all of Eminem's mainstream albums.

2000-2001: The Marshall Mathers LP

Main article: The Marshall Mathers LP

The Marshall Mathers LP was released in May 2000, and quickly sold two million copies. It was Eminem's fastest selling album to date.[9] The first single released from the album, "The Real Slim Shady", was a success and created some buzz by insulting celebrities and making dubious claims about them; he implies, among other things, that Christina Aguilera performed oral sex on Fred Durst (of Limp Bizkit) and Carson Daly (of MTV's Total Request Live).[10] 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 now on good terms. They have performed a remix of the song "The Way I Am" together in concert.[11] In the third single, "Stan" (which samples Dido's "Thank You"), Eminem attempts to deal with his new-found fame, taking on the perspective of a deranged fan who kills himself and his pregnant girlfriend, mirroring "'97 Bonnie & Clyde" on The Slim Shady LP.

The song "Stan" from the album was named as the third greatest rap song of all time in a list compiled by Q Magazine,[12] and came 10th in a similar survey conducted by Top40-Charts.com.[13] The song has since become highly acclaimed and was ranked 290th in Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list.[14] He had also included it on his Curtain Call: The Hits compilation album. Eminem is known to be featured on a future album release by Elton John.[15]

Eminem was arrested when, on June 3, 2000, during an altercation at a car audio store in Royal Oak, Michigan, with Douglas Dail, the ICP manager, he pulled out an unloaded gun and kept it pointed at the ground.[16] The following day, in Warren, Michigan, he allegedly saw his then wife, Kim, kiss the bouncer John Guerrera in the parking lot of the Hot Rock Café and assaulted him with his gun.[16] He was given two years probation for both the episodes.[17] The skit The Kiss on The Eminem Show is based around the latter incident.[18]

In the summer of 2001, Eminem was given probation on weapons charges that stemmed with an argument from an employee working for Insane Clown Posse, giving him a fine around $2,000 as well as several hours of community service.[19] His band-mate Proof from D12 stated that Mathers "sobered up" in 2002.[20] However, he did turn to Zolpidem sleeping pills for relief of sleeping troubles and eventually went to rehab to recover from the addiction.

2002-2003: The Eminem Show

Main article: The Eminem Show

Mathers' third major album, The Eminem Show, was released in summer 2002 and proved to be another hit for the rapper reaching number one on the charts and selling well over 1 million copies in its first week of release.[8] It featured the single "Without Me", an apparent sequel to "The Real Slim Shady", in which he makes derogatory comments about boy bands, Limp Bizkit, Moby, and Lynne Cheney, among others. The album reflected on the impact of his rise to fame, his relationship with his wife and daughter, and his status in the hip-hop community. He also addresses the charges he faced over assaulting a bouncer he saw kissing his wife in 2000. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of All Music Guide felt that while there was clear anger present on several tracks, this album was considerably less inflammatory than The Marshall Mathers LP.[21] However, L. Brent Bozell III, who previously criticized The Marshall Mathers LP for perceived misogynistic lyrics in the album, noted The Eminem Show for its extensive use of obscene language, giving Eminem a nickname of "Eminef" for the bowdlerization of motherfucker, an obscenity prevalent in the album.[22]

In 2003, "Weird Al" Yankovic was denied permission to make a video for "Couch Potato", his parody of Eminem's "Lose Yourself". "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."[23] For the Poodle Hat Al TV special, Yankovic raised the question of artistic expression in a false interview with Eminem. As Yankovic has always done for his Al TV specials, he edited the footage of a previous Eminem interview and inserted himself asking questions to give the impression of hypocrisy on the matter of an artist's right to free speech.[24]

2004-2005: Encore

Main article: Encore (album)

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 song "Bin Laden" with Immortal Technique and Mos Def was released on mixtape.[25] 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...". The song in question, titled "We As Americans", was being recorded possibly for Encore but wound up on a bonus CD accompanying the album instead.[26]

The year 2004 saw the release of Mathers' fourth major album, Encore. The album was another chart-topper for the rapper, driven by the single "Just Lose It", notable for being disrespectful towards Michael Jackson. On October 12, 2004, a week after the release of "Just Lose It", Eminem's first 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 trial, plastic surgery, and an incident in which Jackson's hair caught on fire while filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984. The lyrics to "Just Lose It" also refer to Jackson's legal troubles, however he does state in his song "...and that's not a stab at Michael/Thats just a metaphor/I'm just psycho...". Many of Jackson's supporters and friends spoke out about the video, including Stevie Wonder, who called the video "kicking a man while he's down" and "bullshit".[27] and Steve Harvey who declared, "Eminem has lost his ghetto pass. We want the pass back."[27]

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 #1 requested video on Total Request Live for the week ending October 22. The Source, through its CEO Raymond "Benzino" Scott, wanted not only the video to be pulled, but the song off the album, and a public apology to Jackson from Mathers.[28]

Despite the comedic theme of the lead single, Encore also had its fair share of serious subject matter, including the anti-war track "Mosh". On October 25, 2004, a week before the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, Eminem released the video for "Mosh" on the Internet.[29] The song featured a very strong anti-Bush message, with lyrics such as "fuck Bush" and "this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president."[30] The video features Mathers gathering up an army of people (including rapper Lloyd Banks) 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 protesters invading while Bush was giving a speech.

2005-2007: Hiatus

In 2005, some industry insiders speculated that Mathers was considering ending his rapping career after six years and several multi-platinum albums. Speculation began in early 2005 about a double-disc album to be released late that year, rumored to be titled The Funeral.[31] The album manifested itself as a compilation album under the name Curtain Call: The Hits, and was released on December 6, 2005 under Aftermath Entertainment. In July 2005, the Detroit Free Press broke news of a potential final bow for Mathers as a solo performer, quoting members of his inside circle who said that he will begin to fully embrace the role of producer and label executive. On December 6, 2005, the day Curtain Call: The Hits was released, Mathers denied that he was retiring on Detroit-based WKQI's "Mojo in the Mornin'" radio show, but implied that he would at least be taking a break as an artist, saying "I'm at a point in my life right now where I feel like I don't know where my career is going… This is the reason that we called it 'Curtain Call,' because this could be the final thing. We don't know."[32]

That year, Eminem was a subject of criticism in conservative Bernard Goldberg's book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, being ranked at #58.[33] Goldberg cited a 2001 column by Bob Herbert of The New York Times claiming, "In Eminem's world, all women are whores and he is eager to rape and murder them."[34] The Eminem song "No One's Iller" was also used by Goldberg as an example of misogyny in his music.[35]

In summer 2005, Mathers embarked on his first U.S. concert run in three years, the Anger Management 3 Tour, featuring Lil' Jon, 50 Cent and G-Unit, D12, Obie Trice, The Alchemist, and others. In August 2005, Mathers canceled the European leg of the tour and subsequently announced that he had entered drug rehabilitation for treatment for a "dependency on sleep medication".[36]

On December 5, 2006, Eminem released an album compilation entitled Eminem Presents the Re-Up. It started out as a mixtape but Eminem found that the material was better than expected and released it as a full album. It was meant to help launch new Shady Records artists Stat Quo, Cashis, and Bobby Creekwater.[37]

2008: Eminem's fifth studio album

Main article: Eminem's fifth studio album

Eminem called into New York radio station Hot 97 during a 50 Cent interview and confirmed he is hard at work on his first studio album in three years. He said, "I'm always working -- I'm always in the studio. It feels good right now, the energy of the label. For a while, I didn't want to go back to the studio ... I went through some personal things. I'm coming out of those personal things [and] it feels good." And though he jokingly said he'd release the new CD "tomorrow", there is no official release date, according to Interscope.[38]

Dr. Dre told the Los Angeles Times that he will now devote two months to work on Eminem's new highly-anticipated album, saying "We'll be trying to get his thing done and work on a few things on my own project".[39]

Eminem has been added to the line-up for the former South Africa President’s milestone celebrations at London’s Hyde Park after Queen rocker Brian May persuaded him to come out of retirement. A source said: “Brian contacted Eminem’s management but never expected him to agree. It’s going to be explosive stuff and it’s certainly a big stage to make his comeback.” [40]