Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17,
1972), known by his primary
stage name
Eminem, or by his
alter
ego Slim Shady, is an American
rapper, record producer and actor. Eminem quickly
gained popularity in 1999 with his major-label debut album
The Slim Shady LP, which
won a
Grammy Award for
Best Rap Album. The following album,
The Marshall Mathers LP, became
the fastest-selling
hip hop album in
history. It brought Eminem increased popularity, including his own
record label,
Shady Records, and
brought his group project
D12 to mainstream
recognition.
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 LP's. In
2002, 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 #1 rap
single. 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 has sold more than 80 million albums worldwide to date and
is one of the
best-selling music artists in
the world. Worldwide he is the best selling music artist of the
2000s. Eminem is also ranked in the 100 Greatest Artists of All
Time by
Rolling Stone
magazine. He was also named the Best Rapper Ever in an online
reader-poll by Vibe Magazine.
Musical career
1972–1997: Early life, and Infinite
Marshall Bruce Mathers III was born in
St. Joseph, Missouri the son of Deborah
Mathers-Briggs (née Nelson) and Marshall Bruce Mathers, Jr. Shortly
after his birth, his father abandoned his family.
Until he was twelve,
Mathers and his mother moved between various cities and towns in
Missouri (including St. Joseph, Savannah
and Kansas City
) before moving to 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 fourteen under the pseudonym
"M&M" and joining the group called "Bassmint Productions" and
released their first
EP called
"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. Although he was
enrolled at
Lincoln High School
in Warren, he frequently participated in
freestyle battles at Osborn High
School across town, gaining the approval of underground hip hop
audiences. After repeating the ninth grade three times due to
truancy, he dropped out of high school at age 17.
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. 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. 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." 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. Early in his
career, Eminem collaborated with fellow Detroit MC
Royce da 5'9" under the stage name
Bad Meets Evil. After the release of
Infinite, Eminem's personal struggles and abuse of drugs
and alcohol culminated in his unsuccessful suicide attempt.
With the release of
The Slim Shady
EP, Mathers was accused of imitating the style and subject
matter of underground rapper
Cage.
While promoting the EP, Mathers approached
Insane Clown Posse member
Joseph Bruce and handed him a flyer which
implied that the group would make an appearance at the EP's release
party. Bruce refused to appear because Mathers had not previously
approached him for permission to use the group's name in this way.
Taking Bruce's response as a personal offense, Mathers subsequently
attacked the group in radio interviews.
Jimmy Iovine, CEO of
Interscope Records, requested a demo tape
of Eminem's after Eminem won second place at the 1997
Rap Olympics. 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. Hip-hop magazine
The Source featured Eminem in its
"Unsigned Hype" column in March 1998.
1998–1999: 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 in 1999 his first major studio album,
The Slim Shady LP, heavily based on
the production by
Dr. Dre. The album was,
according to
Billboard,
"light years ahead of the
material he had been writing beforehand". It went on to be one
of the most popular albums of 1999, going
triple platinum by the end of the year.
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" 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,"
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.
2000–2001: 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. 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. 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. 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. 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, and the song came tenth in a
similar survey conducted by Top40-Charts.com. The song has since
become highly acclaimed and was ranked 290th in
Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest
Songs of All Time" list. In July 2000, Eminem became the first
white person to be featured on the cover of
The Source
magazine.
Music tours that he participated in for 2001 included the
Up In Smoke Tour with rappers
Dr. Dre,
Snoop Dogg,
Xzibit, and
Ice Cube
and
Family Values Tour with the
band
Limp Bizkit.
2002–2003: The Eminem Show
Eminem's 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. 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
Allmusic felt that while
there was clear anger present on several tracks, this album was
considerably less inflammatory than
The Marshall Mathers
LP. 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 the nickname "Eminef" for the
bowdlerization of
motherfucker,an obscenity prevalent in the
album.
2004–2005: Encore
On December 8, 2003, the
United States Secret Service
admitted it was "looking into" allegations that Eminem had
threatened the President of the United States. 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, "We As Americans", wound up on a
bonus CD accompanying the album.
The year 2004 saw the release of Eminem's fourth major album,
Encore. The album was another chart-topper, as it was
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" refer to Jackson's legal troubles, however he does state
in his song
"... and that's not a stab at Michael/That's 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", and
Steve Harvey who declared,
"Eminem
has lost his ghetto pass. We want the pass back." In
the video, Eminem parodied
Pee Wee
Herman,
MC Hammer, and a
Blonde-Ambition-touring
Madonna.
Regarding Jackson's protest,
"Weird Al"
Yankovic, who parodied the Eminem song "Lose Yourself" on a
track titled "Couch Potato" on his 2003 album
Poodle Hat, 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." Black Entertainment
Television was the first channel to stop airing the video. MTV,
however, announced it would continue airing the video.
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 Eminem. In 2007 Jackson and Sony bought
Famous Music LLC from
Viacom. This deal gave him the rights to songs by
Eminem,
Shakira and
Beck, among others. Despite the comedic theme of the
lead single,
Encore 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. 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".
The video features Eminem 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.
2005–2008: Musical hiatus
Eminem performing live on the Anger
Management Tour in August 2005
In 2005, some industry insiders speculated that Eminem 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. The album manifested itself as a
greatest hits 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 Eminem 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 the same
day of the release of the compilation album, Eminem denied that he
was retiring on Detroit-based WKQI's "Mojo in the Morning" 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."
In 2005, Eminem was a subject of
Bernard Goldberg's book,
100 People Who Are
Screwing Up America; he ranked #58. 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." The Eminem song "No One's
Iller" from
The Slim Shady EP was used by Goldberg as an
example of
misogyny in his music.
In summer 2005, Eminem embarked on his first U.S. concert run in
three years, the
Anger Management
3 Tour, featuring
50 Cent,
G-Unit,
Lil' Jon,
D12,
Obie Trice,
The Alchemist, and others. In
August 2005, Eminem canceled the European leg of the tour and
subsequently announced that he had entered
drug rehabilitation for treatment for a
"dependency on sleep medication".
2008–2009: Relapse and Relapse 2
Main articles: Relapse and
Relapse 2
In September 2007, Eminem called into New York radio station
Hot 97 during a 50 Cent interview and said he
was "in limbo" and "debating" about when and if he would release
another album. 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."
Eminem made an appearance on his
Sirius channel
Shade
45 in September 2008 in which he said,
"Right now I'm kinda
just concentrating on my own stuff, for right now and just banging
out tracks and producing a lot of stuff. You know, the
more I keep producing the better it seems like I get 'cause I just
start knowing stuff." It was around this time that Interscope
finally confirmed the existence of a new Eminem album, with Spring
2009 later being stated as the period span in which the album is
due. In December 2008, he gave more details on the album, which he
recently reported was being titled
Relapse. He said,
"Me and Dre are back in the lab like the old days, man.
Dre will end up producing the majority of the tracks on
'Relapse'. We are up to our old mischievous ways ... let's
just leave it at that."
On March 5, 2009, Eminem reported in a press release that he would
be releasing two new albums this year.
Relapse, the first album, was released
on May 19, while "
We Made You", the
first official single and its music video, were released on April
7.. On October 3, 2009, Eminem appeared once again on
Shade 45 with
DJ Whoo
Kid and announced that
Denaun
Porter and
Just Blaze were very busy
working on
Relapse 2.
On October
30, Eminem performed at the Voodoo Music Experience in New Orleans
as a headliner in his first full performance in
2009. The performance included several songs from
Relapse, as well as many of Eminem's older hits and an
appearance by D12.
On November 19, 2009, Eminem announced on his website that
Relapse: Refill will be released on December 21st. The
album will be a re-release of the
Relapse album with seven
bonus tracks, including "
Forever" and "Taking My Ball". In a
statement he described the forthcoming CD:
"I want to deliver more material for the fans this year like I originally planned ... Hopefully these tracks on The Refill will tide the fans over until we put out Relapse 2 next year ... I got back in with Dre and then a few more producers, including Just Blaze, and went in a completely different direction which made me start from scratch. The new tracks started to sound very different than the tracks I originally intended to be on Relapse 2, but I still want the other stuff to be heard."
Shady Records and D12
As Eminem succeeded in multi-platinum record sales, Interscope
granted him his own record label. He and his manager
Paul Rosenberg created
Shady Records in late 2000. He
followed this by signing his own Detroit collective
D12 and rapper
Obie
Trice to the label. In 2002, Eminem signed 50 Cent through a
joint venture between Shady and Dr. Dre's Aftermath label.
In 2003,
Eminem and Dr. Dre signed Atlanta
rapper
Stat Quo to the Shady/Aftermath
roster. DJ Green Lantern,
the former
DJ for Eminem, was signed to Shady
Records until a dispute related to the 50 Cent and Jadakiss feud
forced him to depart from the label; he is no longer associated
with Eminem.
The Alchemist
is now officially Eminem's tour DJ. In 2005, Eminem signed another
Atlanta rapper, Bobby Creekwater, to his label along with West
Coast rapper
Cashis.
On December 5, 2006, Shady Records released compilation album,
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 the new artists under the
roster, like Stat Quo, Cashis and Bobby Creekwater.
Around the time of recording
Infinite, Eminem and rappers
Proof and Kon Artis gathered the group of rappers now collectively
in the group D12, short for "Detroit Twelve" or "Dirty Dozen",
performing in the manner of the multi-man group
Wu-Tang Clan. In 2001, Eminem brought his rap
group,
D12, to the popular music scene, and the
group's debut album
Devil's
Night came out that year. The first single released off of
the album was "
Shit on You", followed by
"
Purple Pills", an ode to recreational
drug use. For radio and television, the censored version "Pills"
was heavily rewritten to remove many of the song's references to
drugs and sex and was renamed "Purple Hills". While that single was
a hit, the album's second single, "
Fight
Music", was not as successful.
After their debut, D12 took a three-year break from the studio,
later regrouping to release their second album,
D12 World, in 2004, which featured the
popular hit single release "
My Band". In
April 2006 D12 member Deshaun "
Proof"
Holton was killed in a club brawl on
8 Mile
Road in Detroit, Michigan, involving U.S. military veteran
Keith Bender Jr., who was killed by Proof. The eruption is
suspected to have been due to an argument over a game of pool.
Proof was then allegedly shot by the bouncer Mario Etheridge,
Bender's cousin. He was taken by private vehicle to St. John
Health's Conner Creek Campus, an outpatient emergency treatment
site, but pronounced dead on arrival. Eminem and former Detroit
Shady Records artist
Obie Trice spoke at the funeral.
D12 member
Bizarre said that Eminem
is not featured on his new album
Blue Cheese & Coney
Island because
"he's busy doing his thing". In a
December 2007 interview with the website
DefSounds.com,
Bizarre confirmed that the group is working on its third studio
album, tentatively titled
The Ambition, which he said was
"halfway finished" at the time of the interview. Producers include
Dr. Dre, Eminem, Luis Resto, and Hi-Tek.
Featurings and productions
Although he typically collaborates with various rappers under
Aftermath Entertainment and
Shady Records, such as
Dr. Dre,
50 Cent,
D12, Eminem has collaborated with many other artists,
including,
Redman,
Kid Rock,
DMX,
Missy Elliott,
Jay-Z,
Method Man,
The Notorious B.I.G.,
Jadakiss,
Fat Joe,
Sticky Fingaz,
T.I. and
others.Eminem rapped a verse in a live performance of
Busta Rhymes' "
Touch
It" remix at the 2006 BET Music Awards on June 27, 2006. Eminem
was featured on
Akon's single "
Smack That" which appeared on
Akon's album
Konvicted.
Eminem is also an active rap
producer. Besides being the executive
producer of D12's two albums,
Devil's Night and
D12 World, he has executive produced Obie
Trice's
Cheers and
Second Round's on Me
as well as 50 Cent's
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
and
The Massacre. In addition,
Eminem has produced and appeared on several songs by other famous
rappers, such as
Jadakiss' "Welcome To
D-Block",
Jay-Z's "Renagade" and "Moment of
Clarity"
Lloyd Banks' "
On Fire", "Warrior Part 2", and "Hands Up",
Tony Yayo's "Drama Setter", Trick Trick's "Welcome
2 Detroit", and Xzibit's "My Name" and "Don't Approach Me". Most of
The Eminem Show was produced by Eminem himself, with
co-production from longtime collaborator
Jeff Bass. He split the production with Dr.
Dre on
Encore. In 2004, Eminem was the Executive Producer
of
2Pac's posthumous album
Loyal to the Game with 2Pac's mother
Afeni Shakur. He produced the UK #1
single "
Ghetto Gospel" which featured
Elton John. He has produced "The Cross"
off
Nas's album
God's
Son. On August 15, 2006,
Obie
Trice released
Second
Round's on Me. Eminem produced 8 tracks on the album. He
was featured in the song "There They Go". Eminem produced some
tracks on the new
Trick Trick album,
The Villain. He is also featured in "Who Want It".
Acting career
Although
he had a brief cameo in the 2001 film The Wash, Eminem made his official
Hollywood
acting debut with the semi-autobiographical
8 Mile, released in November
2002. He has said the movie is not an account of his life,
but a representation of growing up in Detroit. He recorded several
new songs for the soundtrack, including "
Lose Yourself", which won an Academy Award for
Best Original Song in
2003. However, the song was not performed at the ceremony, due to
Eminem's absence at the ceremony. His collaborator,
Luis Resto, who co-wrote the song,
accepted the award.
Eminem has participated in various voice acting roles. Some of
these include the video game
50
Cent: Bulletproof, where he voices an aging corrupt police
officer that speaks in
Ebonics and guest spots
on the
Comedy Central television show
Crank Yankers, and a web
cartoon called
The Slim Shady
Show, which has since been pulled off-line and is instead
sold on DVD. He will be involved in either the soundtrack or
scoring. He was also in the running for the part of David Rice in
2008's film
Jumper after
Tom Sturridge was dropped just 2 weeks
before filming. Concerns over not having a more prominent actor
prompted the director,
Doug Liman, to
consider other actors for the role.
Hayden Christensen was eventually
selected over Eminem.
It was reported on November 8, 2009 that Eminem will star in the
upcoming 3D horror anthology,
Shady Talez, directed by
John Davis. A four-issue comic book series based
on the film is also expected to be published sometime in
2010.
Memoir
On October 21, 2008, Eminem released a tell-all autobiography
titled
The Way I
Am, which details his struggles with poverty, drugs, fame,
heartbreak and depression, along with stories about his rise to
fame and commentary on past controversies. This book also contains
some of the original lyric sheets from songs like Stan and The real
slim shady.
Personal life
Family
Marshall Mathers has often been subject of much scrutiny as a
rapper as well in his personal life. He was married twice to
Kimberley Anne Scott, whom he met in high school. They began their
on-and-off relationship in 1989, getting married by 1999. Their
first divorce was in 2001. In 2000, Scott attempted suicide and
sued the rapper for defamation after he depicted her violent death
in his song "
Kim". They remarried in 2006
but divorced again less than three months later, agreeing to share
custody of their daughter, Hailie Jade Scott (born December 25,
1995). Hailie Scott has often been referenced or featured on
various songs of Eminem, such as "
'97 Bonnie & Clyde", "Hailie's
Song", "
My Dad's Gone Crazy",
"
Mockingbird", "
Forgot About Dre", "
Cleanin' Out My Closet", "
When I'm Gone", "Deja vu", and
"
Beautiful".
Mathers adopted two other daughters: Alaina "Lainey" Mathers, the
child of Kimberley Scott's sister, and Whitney Mathers, Eminem's
step daughter.
Legal troubles
In 1999 Mathers' mother sued him for around
US$10 million over alleged slander about her in his
lyrics regarding
The Slim Shady LP; she won only about
US$1,600 in damages in 2001.
Mathers
was arrested on June 3, 2000 during an altercation at a car audio
store in Royal Oak,
Michigan
, with Douglas Dail, where he pulled out an unloaded
gun and kept it pointed at the ground. The following day, in
Warren, Michigan, he allegedly saw his then wife, Kim, kiss bouncer
John Guerrera in the parking lot of the
Hot Rock Café so
he assaulted him. He was given two years probation for both the
episodes.
In the summer of 2001, Mathers' legal troubles continued, as he was
given probation on weapons charges that stemmed from an argument
with an employee of
Psychopathic
Records, giving him a fine around $2,000 as well as several
hours of community service.
In 2007
Eminem's music publishing company Eight Mile Style LLC together
with Martin Affiliated LLC filed suit against Apple, Inc
and Aftermath
Entertainment claiming Aftermath did not have the appropriate
authority to negotiate a deal with Apple for digital downloads of
93 songs by rapper Eminem on Apple's iTunes
service. The case against Apple went to trial in late
September 2009 and was settled a few days later.
Drug issues
His group-mate
Proof from
D12 stated that Mathers "sobered up" in 2002 from drug
and alcohol dependence.However, he did turn to
zolpidem sleeping pills for relief from sleeping
troubles. This caused Mathers to cancel the European leg of the
Anger Management Tour in
August 2005 and eventually go into rehab for treatment for
a
"dependency on sleep medication". In a 2009 interview
with British talk-show host
Jonathan
Ross, Mathers admitted that at the height of his addiction, he
considered suicide, saying that
"I just wasn't taking care of
myself, at times I wanted to just give it up." He also
confirmed that he is now sober, commenting that
"[R]ap was my
drug ... Then I had to resort to other things to make me
feel that. Now rap's getting me high again."
Conflict with Mariah Carey
Eminem has written several songs referring to a relationship with
pop singer
Mariah Carey, although she
denies the claim. Songs Eminem has referenced her on include
"
Superman", "
Jimmy Crack Corn", "Bagpipes
From Baghdad", and "The Warning". While "Superman" was released in
2003, Carey released a song entitled "Clown" on her
Charmbracelet album, released around the
same time, which makes similar references in line with her 2009 hit
"
Obsessed".
Eminem's "Bagpipes From Baghdad" from his album
Relapse may be his best known Carey
diss due to the controversy it caused. The song calls out Mariah
and husband
Nick Cannon's relationship.
Cannon responded to Eminem by saying his career is based on "racist
bigotry", and that he would get revenge on Eminem, joking that he
may return to rapping. Eminem later stated that the couple
misinterpreted the track and it was wishing the two the best.
Cannon also stated that there were no hard feelings, and that he
just had to express his feelings about the song.
In 2009 Carey released "Obsessed" in which she sings about an
obsessed man who claims to be having a relationship with her.
Cannon claimed that the song was not an insult directed at Eminem.
Eminem then released a track in late July 2009 titled "The Warning"
which was a direct insult at Mariah and Nick, and contained samples
of a voice which is either Carey's, or a competent voice actress
(Eminem does not tell the listener).
Discography
- Studio albums
- Compilations
Number-one singles
Filmography
Awards and nominations
Eminem has won many
Grammy Awards,
been praised for having "verbal energy", high quality of lyricism
and been ranked at number nine on
MTV's list of
The Greatest MCs of All Time, In 2003 he was listed as
number thirteen on MTV's 22 Greatest Voices in Music and number 82
on
Rolling Stone's "The
Immortals". In 2008, the readers of
Vibe Magazine voted him "The Best
Rapper Alive". He was also named "Best Rapper Ever" taking down all
opponents very easily in a poll which was conducted by music fans
on the Vibe website.
Ironically, "
The Real Slim
Shady", one of the songs from his first Grammy-winning album,
The Marshall Mathers
LP, slammed the Grammy Awards in its second verse, and
stated the opinion that negative feelings about his material would
keep him from ever winning one.
See also
Business ventures
References
Sources
External links
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