Eminem: Click Here For 's Biography |
Eminem: Click Here For 's Filmography
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He was born Marshall Bruce Mathers (the third no less) on October 17, 1972 in Kansas City, Missouri. And somewhere between then and now he became known as one of the more controversial, angry white guys that the world has seen fit to gang up on and try and censor in a long time. |
The thing is, I have yet to see what the guy has done that's all that new or controversial. What is sad is that he is just exposing all the typical hypocrisy's that have been around for decades and acted like a rock star for the media. Somehow, this turned into multi-million success and a lot of angry 'special interest' groups who say his lyrics incite violence, sexism, racism, all sorts of 'isms' actually.
Yeah, and KISS stands for Knights in Satan's Service, Ozzy Osbourne is the devil and Elvis and his hips shouldn't be shown on the Ed Sullivan show.
Anyway, I doubt if you're reading this that you're not already an Eminem fan of some form or shape. You probably know that his mother was only fifteen when she had Marshall, his father left six months after he was born. You would also know that he spent his childhood growing up in both Kansas City and Metro Detroit…shuttling back and forth between the two earning his street credentials.
Between 1986 and 1989 he had made it an early habit of switching high schools every two to three months. At 17 he would give up on his education after having failed grade 9 three times. I'm assuming he didn't fail because he couldn't pass but more like he could care less...but that's just me assuming.
| By this time he had already established himself, at least in his own mind, as a serious rap artist. He had been playing with the form since childhood, making rhymes and entertaining friends with his bits. By the time he was 14 he was beginning to take the idea of being a rapper a bit more seriously and at 17 he had already established a local name for himself…as M&M (obviously stemming from his name Marshall Mather) and eventually changed it to the more iconic Eminem. |
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For record companies, white rappers were still hit (Beastie Boys, House of Pain) and miss (Vanilla Ice, Marky Mark). Eminem had a lot to prove to secure the respect of his peers. He recorded and distributed his own album called Infinite which sold less than a thousand copies.
It was now 1995, he was living with his girlfriend (whom he would marry in 1999) Kim Scott, pretty much flat broke, when they had Hailie Jade Scott on December 25th. There's a lot of anger in a guy who couldn't break the mold, make the cash and support his family. And it was this anger that fueled his next effort that he would call the Slim Shady EP.
With nothing to lose he scrounged up every bit of loose change he could and headed down to L.A. to take part in the 1997 rap Olympics. First prize was $1500 bucks and Eminem and the fam could use the cash. Despite having to deal with every race diss thrown his way Eminem was doing pretty well landing second place.
Not the happy ending he was looking for but what he didn't realize was that in the crowd were a few producers from Interscope. They handed a copy of his album "Infinite" around and it made its way to Dr. Dre.
Apparently the two hit it off and they recorded four songs in their first six hours together in the studio, three of which would make it to Eminem's first LP. The Slim Shady LP followed in early 1999 became a huge hit with such tunes as My Name Is and Guilty Conscience, the album eventually went triple platinum.
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His next album, The Marshall Mather LP would be release in the summer of 200 but before that he also appeared on Dre's Dr. Dre 2001. This gave him the crossover appeal that, honestly, wasn't really needed by this time. He was jokingly referred to as the 'great white hope' in the industry, a moniker not without some basis in fact. When the Marshall Mathers LP hit in the summer of 2000 it moved close to two million copies in its first week of release on its way to becoming the fastest-selling rap album of all time, a record for a solo artist. |
This album would go on to win three Grammies and become the first rap album to be nominated for Album of the Year. It would go on to sell more than 8 million copies in the United States alone...despite Napster, despite all the piracy of the internet Eminem was setting some records.
More recently, despite the success, Eminem still has the dark and downbeat material in his life to keep writing. He divorced his wife in 2001, had a weapons charge and had to deal with the whole homophobic issue which made for some great headlines when he played with Elton John on stage. Hell, even I tuned in to watch that.
Since then his songs have been used in Training Day, Freddy Got Fingered, Down To Earth, Scary Movie, Next Friday, End of Days, Strangeland and more obviously Eight Mile. Eight Mile marks his feature film debut and it is a fascinating project.
Usually when a rap artist decides to hit the screens a few cameo, supporting roles start the career and often with music video directors. Not this time. It's a big budget production loosely based on Eminem's life story. Directed by Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, The Wonder Boys) and
co-starring Kim Basinger as his mother, this is not some knock off project trying to cash in on the name of Eminem. The final product will be something a lot of people are curious to find out about.
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Copyright© Staffwriter: Rob Paul
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