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www.thesimpleguideto.comThe Simple Guide to Eminem
Published by Chris Scott at Smashwords.Copyright 2011 Chris Scott
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copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.Facts:
Name – Marshall Bruce Mathers III
Date of Birth – 17th October 1972
Born – Saint Joseph, Missouri, United States of America
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/eminem
Twitter - @eminem - Twitter
Website – http://www.eminem.com
TSGT – http://www.thesimpleguideto.com/eminem.html
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Eminem (A.K.A. “Marshall Mathers”) Biography
Early Days
Eminem was born as Marshall Mathers III on October 17th, 1972 in St.
Joseph, Missouri. Growing up, Eminem never knew his father. His
unfortunate disappearance left him to be raised by his mother,
Deborah Mathers. Since she wasn’t able to hold a job for very long,
they were forced to move around a lot, mainly between Missouri
and Detroit, Michigan. As you can see, it’s evident that Eminem’s
childhood wasn’t “ideal”.
He spent a large amount of time in public housing projects.
However, he didn’t even consider that the worst part, “I would
change schools two, three, times a year,” he says, “That was
probably the roughest part about it all”.
Fun Fact: Eminem holds the Guinness Book of World Records for
fastest selling hip-hop artist.
Growing up, he never had any close friends. He was more of an
outcast, “Beat up in the bathroom, beat up in the hallways, shoved
into lockers”. That was Eminem’s reality as a child.
Eventually, Marshall went on to attend Lincoln High School (Warren,
Michigan) and after failing the 9th grade three times, dropped out at
the age of seventeen. Surprisingly, he continued to be an avid
reader of comic books and the dictionary!
Fun Fact: A requirement for joining shady records (his label
company) is to have a rap battle against him (Eminem).
“I found that no matter how bad I was at school, and no matter how
my grades might have been at times, I always was good at English …
I just felt, like, I wanna be able to have all these words at my
disposal, in my vocabulary at all times whenever I need to pull em’
out. You know, somewhere, they’d be like stored, like, locked
away.”
Discovering His Passion
Despite being mostly for black people, Eminem decided to join the
rap scene. He would participate in frequent “rap battles”, a
contest where two individuals battle against each other using clever
lines to undermine one another, and quickly gained respect from his
peers.
Unfortunately, the man who introduced Eminem to hip-hop at the
age of 11, Ronald “Ronnie” Nelson (his uncle), committed suicide
via a shotgun wound to the head. Marshall was extremely close to
his uncle and was devastated by his death. If you ever see Eminem
live, you might notice the tattoo on his left upper arm reading
“Ronnie R.I.P”. His uncle has also been included in some of
Marshall’s songs including, “Stan”, “Cleaning out my closet”, and
“My dad’s gone crazy”. Despite this tragic event, he still focused
all his energy on rap and believed that he had finally found a way to
gain respect from his peers.
Fun Fact: Eminem is an avid Spiderman fan.
“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 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 gettn a little respect”.
Fun Fact: Eminem wears glasses because he is near-sighted.
He was indeed starting to get a little respect, maybe more than a
little. He soon after took on the stage name M&M, which was
derived from his initials and was meant to be taken funny. After a
while he began writing it phonetically as Eminem.
It was during this period of his life that Eminem begin working odd
jobs to make ends meet. For quite some time, he held a minimum
wage job at a restaurant called Gilbert’s Lodge. It was here where
he would cook and clean for up to eight hours a day just to support
himself.
In his spare time, he was also putting in as many rap battles as he
could, all the while trying to snag a record deal. It didn’t come
easy and he put in a lot of hours on honing his trade.
Getting the Ball Rolling
During this period, he began dating a woman named Kim Ann Scott,
an old friend from high school and in 1995; the two of them had a
daughter who they named Hailie Jade Scott. Little did he know at
the time, Hailie would become the ultimate driving force in his life
and would be his reason for wanting to succeed even more.
Fun Fact: When Eminem was first discovered and seen by Dre,
he was wearing a bright yellow tracksuit that he got from his
sponsors since he couldn’t afford to by decent clothes. Dre said
that he looked like a banana.
With a daughter to support, Eminem became inspired and made his
first attempt at releasing a record. He called it Infinite. It was
after much saving up, he was able to record his record at Bassmint,
a recording studio which, at the time, was owned by the Bass
brothers. The record was released under their independent label
called Web Entertainment.
He recalls, “Obviously, I was young and influenced by other artists, I
got a lot of feedback saying that I sounded a lot 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 microphone and present myself.
It was a growing stage. I felt like Infinite was just a demo that got
all pressed up”.
Eminem did his best to incorporate his life into his songs. He
described his financial situation and how we wanted to make it, and
he also involved his new born daughter, Hailie, into his songs as
well. He was the kind of rapper who “had no secrets”. If
something was going on in his life, you would be sure to hear about
it in his music. This trait is what really separated him from others
artists because people were really able to “connect” with an artist
for the first time.
Unfortunately, it flopped and didn’t receive anything more than
local attention. However, this did not stop his hunger to succeed,
not even close.
One year later he released another record which he called The Slim
Shady LP Demo. This was the move that set his career into motion.
It was discovered by hip-hop legend Dr. Dre who later flew to
Detroit to see Eminem during a rap battle. Needless to say, Dre
signed him to Interscope Records on the spot. From that day
forward, it was a quick explosive ride to the top.
Fun Fact: Have you ever noticed the “bling” that Eminem sports
on his wrist? Well, it isn’t your typical bling, it’s two bracelets
which say “DAD” on them and were made by his daughter
Hailie.
After two years of working with Dr. Dre, Eminem released The Slim
Shady LP which became an instant success. It was released on
cassette, CD, and of course vinyl and incorporated his alter ego Slim
Shady. This was Eminem’s second chance to dwell into poverty and
how he was dealing with the various problems in his life. Many
believed that music was Marshall’s outlet, a way for him to deal
with the problems in his life and share them with the world. The
Slim Shady LP captured audiences from all over the United States,
and became established with international audiences as well.
Things were going good for Eminem. After releasing this album, he
married Kim later that year. In May of 2000, he released his second
album, The Marshall Mathers LP. This record took off as well,
selling a massive 1.76 million copies in the first week. It was the
fastest selling hip-hop record in United States history.
It was on this record that Eminem produced one of his more, well
known hits, “The Real Slim Shady”. Chances are that you have
probably heard it. This song created a lot of controversy in the
celebrity world calling out singer Christina, for accusations on
performing sexual acts on Carson Daily and Fred Durst, among
others.
The other single on his record, “The Way I am” had a true spoken
sense about it. He described to his fans the pressures he would
face from his record company to top his first single, “The Real Slim
Shady” and so on. Marilyn Manson later performed a remix of this
song on stage with him and they were reportedly on very good
terms even though Eminem had called him out on a previous record.
However, this one didn’t receive as much “positive feedback” as his
other album. He was accused of corrupting the young through
vulgar lyrics and inappropriate use of language. He was heckled for
a long time about this.
Fun Fact: To take the role on 8 Mile, Eminem had to drop from
168 pounds to 145 pounds. On set, they would have to snatch
his notebook from his hand because he was constantly writing
lyrics between breaks.
He was on an album frenzy, releasing them within very short periods
of time. In 2001, he reconnected with old friends from Detroit and
created an album called Devils’ Night.
A year later, he released The Eminem Show. This was, not
surprisingly, another hit and sold well over 1 million copies in the
first week. It also had a few well known songs including, “Without
me” (a rather humorous single about Eminem making fun of boy
bands). However, despite the razzing, this became a certified 4x
platinum album, according to the RIAA (Recording Industry
Association of America).
Rough Times
What goes up must come down eventually, right? Well, in this case it
was true. Eminem had been living the high life for so long,
releasing record after record, raking in the big bucks, and gaining
popularity from across the world. He was unstoppable. But even
the most indestructible people can be broken, and that’s exactly
what happened.
On December 2008, he was investigated by the Secret Service for
supposed accusation on threatening the president’s life. The lyrics
which caused this unnecessary drama? "Fxxx money … I don't rap
for dead presidents … I'd rather see the president dead … It's never
been said, but I set precedents ... "
Fun Fact: Eminem has been falsely reported dead four times in
car accidents, and falsely reported dead by drug overdose once.
His apparent rising success quickly turned sour. He released his
album Encore in 2004, which included popular hits like “Toy
Soldiers” and “Mockingbird”. Again, it topped the chart at a rapid
rate. A week after the records release, Michael Jackson called
Steve Harvey (Los Angeles based radio-host) to report the
unpleasant feelings that the video produces, images relating to
child molestation, images of plastic surgery, and even a parody
describing the incident when Michael caught his hair on fire while
filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984.
They also referred to Jackson’s financial trouble and included lyrics
as follows: "... and that's not a stab at Michael… That's just a
metaphor… I'm just psycho...." Enraged by this, followers of Michael
(including Stevie Wonder) spoke out about the video saying things
like, “Kicking up while he’s down” and “Bullshit”.
All in all, despite the humorous theme that Eminem was hoping for,
Encore created a lot of controversy and had a huge share of touchy
subjects.
It was during this time, that Eminem was going through relationship
turmoil. He was in and out of relationships on a constant basis and
couldn’t seem to settle down with any one particular person.
In 2005, Eminem was ranked number 58 in Bernard Goldberg’s, “100
People Who Are Screwing Up America”. When interviewed,
Goldberg simply replied, “In Eminem’s world, all women are whores
and he is eager to rape and murder them.” This enraged Mathers
even further and served as a fuel of motivation to continue his
work.
In 2006, Eminem tried to remarry Kim. This worked for several
months but, as it did previously, turned sour and the two split up.
However, this time it was different. Marshall and Kim participated
in heated court cases in who would have custody over their
daughter, Hailie. This dragged on for years.
Fun Fact: When he was 11 years old, Eminem used to have a
crush on pop singer, Madonna.
In December 2007, he overdosed and almost lost his life, “If I would
have gotten to the hospital two hours later, that would have been
it”. This close call in Eminem’s life really gave him a new
perspective on things and made him see things much differently.
From this point forward, he decided that things were going to
change.
Making a Comeback
Some people allow the stress of daily life to overtake them. It’s
easy to get hooked on stimulants like drugs and alcohol. It serves as
a temporary solution to, usually, a bigger problem. It’s even easier
to stay hooked on those stimulants. Users become so accustomed
to its daily use that it becomes a lifeline. Without it, they can’t
function and lose their mind.
Fun Fact: Eminem wears size XXL clothes
However, this didn’t apply to Marshall, who managed to break free
from his drug and alcohol addictions in early 2008. He was back, he
was motivated. With his new and improved swagger, he released his
first album in five years which was called Relapse. It was a hit and
had a much gentler tone than his previous records.
He had some major singles on this records. “We made you” was the
first official single included with the record and was released on
April 7th. Although Eminem wasn’t able to sell quite as many
records as he done in the past, Relapse was still named one of the
top albums in 2009 and sold more than 5 million copies worldwide.
Here was his statement about the release, “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.”
After all, Marshall had become a humbler man and from then on,
wanted to create music that could have a positive effect on the
lives of others, and that’s exactly what he did.
Fun Fact: Eminem cuts his own hair.
In 2010, he released another record, Recovery, which was designed
to outline his life and his attempts to break free from his addiction.
At first, Eminem had thought about naming this record “Relapse 2”;
as he posted a tweet saying so on Twitter. Fans were unsure of his
motives. He believed that Recovery deserved its own title because
it depicted an entirely different point in his life.
In the first week, it sold over 740,000 copies. Although this wasn’t
his record high (in terms of selling records), it still became
Marshall’s sixth consecutive #1 album in the United States and even
carved it’s way over to international waters, reaching #1 in several
other countries as well.
Popular hits on the album included: “Not Afraid” (which was
released on April 29th and rose to #1 on the billboard top 100
charts), “Love the way you lie (which debuted second but quickly
rose to the top as well and was the best selling record in the UK),
and many others. The record had a few insanities but critics loved
the feel that it produced and believed that others could benefit
from such a positive message.
He stated, “I don’t want to go overboard with it, but I do feel like
that if I can help people that have been through similar situations,
then, you know, why not?”
Around this time, when rapper Asher Roth (white rapper) came into
the hip-hop scene, Eminem was asked whether or not it bothered
him. He replied, "I haven't had a chance to, like, really get into
everything, like, really get into what he's about, because I've only
heard a couple songs. There was talk about people saying he
sounded like me, and he was doing this and that and, you know,
trying to take what I do and do it. You know, shit like that. I've
heard things. But the stuff that I've heard from him honestly, which
certainly isn't enough for me to make my own opinion and say,
‘Yeah, he does sound like me' or ‘No, he doesn't.' But the couple of
songs I've heard, I don't really think he does. You know what I
mean? He's doing his own thing. I can respect it, too, because at
the end of the day, I think he's dope."
Today, Eminem tries to spend as much time with his daughter,
Hailie, and also tries to lead a better life overall. “I started
learning how to not be so angry about things, learning how to count
my blessings instead. By doing that, I’ve become a happier person,
instead of self-loathing like I was doing for a while.”
Needless to say…
Eminem is one of most acclaimed rapper/hip artists in history. He
has been through unimaginable pain and has been driven to achieve
great heights in his career. He has achieved ten number one albums
and received more than 33 million track downloads in the United
States alone, millions more when you include international
countries. He has been ranked and listed as one of the best rappers
to ever live in various magazines and his mix of unusual style and
“no filter” rapping can service as evidence as to why he deserves it.
Not only is he a lyrical poet, but he is also one tough cookie. He
has made it through so much controversy in his life, and managed to
come out on top- how many people do you think can actually say
that? My guess is not many.
As long as he lives, Eminem will continue to be an inspiration to
those around him and, if provided the opportunity, will hopefully
continue to express himself through his music and provide us all
with genuine connection.
To learn more about Simple Guides visit
http://www.thesimpleguideto.com
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