Eminem

Marshall Mathers wrote long words down the side of a page, then worked out a rhyme for every syllable underneath. The results often made no sense. That was not the point — it was a drill, and he ran it for years. His father left when he was 18 months old. He and his mother moved so often they rarely kept a house more than a year or two, and when they settled in Detroit he was 12 and one of three white households on the block. He spent three years in ninth grade and left Lincoln High at 17. He washed dishes in St Clair Shores, 60 hours a week after his daughter was born, and was fired five days before Christmas.

He took second at the 1997 Rap Olympics and the tape reached Jimmy Iovine, who played it for Dr Dre. Dre said find him, now. The Slim Shady LP arrived in February 1999, and The Marshall Mathers LP sold 1.76 million copies in its first week in May 2000. Then The Eminem Show, 8 Mile and an Academy Award for Lose Yourself. A methadone overdose in December 2007 put him, by his doctors' account, about two hours from dying. He has been sober since April 20, 2008. The total stands at 11 number-one albums and more than 220 million records.

The technique is the least disputed thing about him. He runs multisyllabic chains four and five syllables deep, packs internal rhymes so tightly that the line breaks stop mattering, and bends words out of shape to rhyme with words that do not. Rap God holds the Guinness record for most words in a hit single, 1,560 of them, including 99 in 16.45 seconds. The argument is elsewhere. He is a white man who became the biggest seller in a Black American art form, and he has said so himself. His skin got him heard where others were not, and on The Eminem Show he did the arithmetic: if he were Black, he would have sold half. Melle Mel has said his top-five standing is owed to his race. Others answer that nobody selling at that scale ever rapped better.

The early records carried homophobic and misogynistic lines, and they were condemned as they appeared. GLAAD picketed the 43rd Grammy Awards in February 2001, where he performed Stan as a duet with Elton John. He has apologized for some of it since, including the slur he aimed at Tyler, the Creator in 2018, which he said went too far. Both his mother and his former wife sued him over the songs. John went on to call him every week through the years he was getting clean. Dr Dre inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022, on the first ballot, and none of the arguments about him have closed.

Eminem's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• The Slim Shady LP album
  Won Best Rap Album at the 42nd Grammy Awards 1999
• The Marshall Mathers LP album
  1.76 million copies in its first week 2000
• The Eminem Show album
  The best-selling album in the world in 2002 2002
• 8 Mile film
  He played a fictionalized version of himself 2002
• Lose Yourself song
  First hip-hop record to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song 2002
• Recovery album
  The best-selling album of 2010 in the United States 2010

• October 17, 1972 aged 0 Born in St. Joseph, Missouri His father left before he was two. He and his mother moved constantly until they settled in Detroit.
• 1996 aged ~24 Infinite is released and fails Detroit disc jockeys ignored it. One piece of feedback he remembered was a suggestion that he try rock and roll.
• 1997 aged ~25 Places second at the Rap Olympics in Los Angeles The Slim Shady EP he had just recorded reached Jimmy Iovine, and then Dr Dre.
• March 9, 1998 aged 25 Signs to Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Dre on hearing the tape: find him, now.
• May 23, 2000 aged 27 The Marshall Mathers LP sells 1.76 million copies in a week It broke the US records for fastest-selling hip-hop album and fastest-selling solo album.
• February 21, 2001 aged 28 Performs Stan with Elton John at the 43rd Grammy Awards GLAAD protested outside the venue the same day over the homophobic content of his lyrics.
• March 23, 2003 aged 30 Lose Yourself wins the Academy Award for Best Original Song He was not at the ceremony. His co-writer Luis Resto accepted the award.
• December 2007 aged 35 Hospitalized after an accidental methadone overdose Doctors told him he was about two hours from dying. He has been sober since April 20, 2008.
• November 2022 aged 50 Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility Dr Dre presented him.

• Tupac Shakur 1971–1996
  Rapper and actor whose work and persona became enduring symbols of hip-hop’s social and personal tensions. influenced by
• The Notorious B.I.G. 1972–1997
  Rapper who remade East Coast hip-hop in two albums before his murder at 24 measured against
• Jay-Z b. 1969
  Rapper and entrepreneur whose career helped move hip-hop from a subculture to the center of American business and culture. toured with
• Kendrick Lamar b. 1987
  Rapper whose albums won a Pulitzer Prize and multiple Grammy Awards. recorded with
• Elvis Presley 1935–1977
  The King of Rock and Roll whose music and style revolutionized American popular culture. compared to