He “used to have to sit and watch them bills pile up,” and now? “I just sit back and watch them bills pile up.”
Marshall Mathers, aka Eminem, aka the Real Slim Shady, is undoubtedly one of the most influential rappers of all time. While the debate over the best rapper rages on, there’s no arguing that he’s had a singularly prominent career. With work spanning more than two decades, the “Lose Yourself” artist is known for his controversial lyrics, powerful storytelling, and boundary-breaking style.
Eminem has sold millions of albums worldwide, earned multiple Grammy Awards, and broken music barriers, as when he was awarded the most certified artist for singles in Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) history. His music is not the only thing he’s known for either. His venture into acting with a critically acclaimed role in 8 Mile showed off his multifaceted talent.
Marshall Mathers, aka Eminem, aka the Real Slim Shady, is undoubtedly one of the most influential rappers of all time. While the debate over the best rapper rages on, there’s no arguing that he’s had a singularly prominent career. With work spanning more than two decades, the “Lose Yourself” artist is known for his controversial lyrics, powerful storytelling, and boundary-breaking style.
Eminem has sold millions of albums worldwide, earned multiple Grammy Awards, and broken music barriers, as when he was awarded the most certified artist for singles in Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) history. His music is not the only thing he’s known for either. His venture into acting with a critically acclaimed role in 8 Mile showed off his multifaceted talent.
Eminem’s Early Life
Anyone who knows Eminem’s music knows he didn’t exactly have an easy childhood. Born Marshall Bruce Mathers III, the “Without Me” rapper was raised by his mother Deborah “Debbie” Nelson after his father left when he was a young child. Debbie, who had Eminem when she was 18, was reportedly addicted to drugs throughout his childhood (something he’s been forthcoming about in many of his songs) and was unable to hold down a job so the family regularly moved around.
“I would change schools two, three times a year. That was probably the roughest part about it all,” Eminem told Anderson Cooper on an episode of 60 Minutes in 2010.
This peripatetic lifestyle had a huge impact on his early life. With the inability to make close friends due to his frequent moves, Eminem kept mostly to himself, trying to stay away from the school bullies that frequently taunted him.
“Yeah, there was a few instances,” Eminem said about being bullied. “Beat up in the bathroom, beat up in the hallways, shoved into lockers. You know, just for, you know, for the most part, man, you know, just bein’ the new kid.”
When he was just 11 years old, his family moved just outside of Detroit. A few years later, at the age of 14, Eminem officially began his rap career with a high school friend, before establishing himself in the city’s battle rap scene.
Like many artists who struggled in their early childhood, the rapper used that conflict to make something of himself. While he may not have been the most popular kid in school, he knew from a very young age that he had a talent and wanted to capitalize on it.
Hip-hop has always been braggin’ and boasting and ‘I’m better at you than this’ and ‘I’m better at you than that.’ And I finally found something that yeah, this kid over here, you know, he may have more chicks, and he may, you know, have better clothes, or whatever, but he can’t do this like me,” he added. “You know what I mean? He can’t write what I’m writing right now. And it started to feel like, you know, maybe Marshall’s gettin’ a little respect.”
At 17, Eminem dropped out of high school to pursue a career in music full-time. He worked random jobs, rapping at local clubs like the Hip Hop Shop and forming rap groups like the New Jacks and Soul Intent. It wasn’t until 1999 when he joined D12 that he started to gain the attention of mainstream artists.
Eminem started his solo career when he released his first album, Infinite, in 1996. The following year was big for him, with the release of his second album The Slim Shady EP and winning second place at the Rap Olympics in Los Angeles that ultimately caught the attention of rapper and producer Dr. Dre. In 1999, Dr. Dre signed Eminem and helped him release an improved version of his second album.
His next two releases, The Marshall Mathers LP in 2000 and The Eminem Show 2002, were worldwide successes. Both were nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. After the release of Encore in 2004, Eminem took a break from music for years, largely due to a prescription drug addiction that resulted in an overdose in 2007.
If I would have got to the hospital two hours later, that would have been it,” Eminem told Cooper. “‘Cause my organs, everything, my kidneys… Everything was shutting down.”
He took a couple years to recover before releasing Relapse in 2009 and Recovery in 2010.
“I remember when I first got sober and all the s— was out of my system, I remember just being, like, really happy and everything was f—–g new to me again,” he told People. “It was the first album and the first time that I had fun recording in a long time.
“It was like the first time I started having fun with music again, and relearning how to rap, you remember that whole process,” Eminem added. “It took a long time for my brain to start working again.”
Eminem went on to release five No. 1 albums including The Marshall Mathers LP 2 in 2013, Revival in 2017, Kamikaze in 2018, Music to Be Murdered By in 2020, and most recently The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) in 2024.
Eminem’s Many Awards
While many have claimed to be the best rapper of all time, there’s a reason Eminem (along with just about everyone else) calls himself the “Rap God.” With more than 220 million records sold, 15 Grammys, 17 Billboard Music Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and so on, there’s no doubt Eminem is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. For most of the early 2000s, the “Till I Collapse” rapper was one of the top-selling music artists in the U.S., and he still remains one of the most iconic musicians of the 21st century.
Hip-hop has always been braggin’ and boasting and ‘I’m better at you than this’ and ‘I’m better at you than that.’ And I finally found something that yeah, this kid over here, you know, he may have more chicks, and he may, you know, have better clothes, or whatever, but he can’t do this like me,” he added. “You know what I mean? He can’t write what I’m writing right now. And it started to feel like, you know, maybe Marshall’s gettin’ a little respect.”
At 17, Eminem dropped out of high school to pursue a career in music full-time. He worked random jobs, rapping at local clubs like the Hip Hop Shop and forming rap groups like the New Jacks and Soul Intent. It wasn’t until 1999 when he joined D12 that he started to gain the attention of mainstream artists.
Like many artists who struggled in their early childhood, the rapper used that conflict to make something of himself. While he may not have been the most popular kid in school, he knew from a very young age that he had a talent and wanted to capitalize on it.
