Eminem

Eminem turned a hard Detroit upbringing into one of the most successful and most argued-over careers in music. Born Marshall Bruce Mathers III on October 17, 1972, in St. Joseph, Missouri, he spent his childhood moving between there and Detroit, where he sharpened his skills in local rap battles. Under his own name and his alter ego Slim Shady, he became the best-selling hip-hop artist of all time and one of the most popular artists in any genre, known for a technical command of rhyme and rhythm that few rappers have matched.

From Detroit battles to Dr. Dre

Eminem’s early road was rough. His debut album Infinite (1996) went largely unheard, and out of that disappointment he created Slim Shady, a darker, sharper persona he introduced on the Slim Shady EP (1997). After placing second at the annual Rap Olympics in Los Angeles, his demo reached Interscope and, crucially, producer Dr. Dre, who signed him to Aftermath Entertainment. The partnership changed everything. The Slim Shady LP (1999), powered by the single “My Name Is,” brought mainstream attention and a first taste of the controversy that would follow him for years.

The Marshall Mathers LP and the peak

In 2000 Eminem released The Marshall Mathers LP, which set a record as the fastest-selling rap album in the United States and went on to sell more than twenty million copies worldwide, earning Diamond certification. It paired manic humor on “The Real Slim Shady” with the unsettling fan-obsession narrative of “Stan,” a song so widely known it added a new word to the language. The album won Best Rap Album and was nominated for Album of the Year. Facing protests over its lyrics, Eminem answered critics by performing “Stan” as a duet with Elton John at the 2001 Grammy Awards. He followed it with The Eminem Show in 2002, the best-selling album worldwide that year.

8 Mile and “Lose Yourself”

That same year he stepped in front of the camera for 8 Mile, a semi-autobiographical film about a struggling Detroit rapper. Its theme, “Lose Yourself,” became his first Billboard Hot 100 number one, held the top spot for twelve weeks, and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, a first for a rap track. The film and song widened his audience well beyond hip-hop and cemented his place in the mainstream.

Hiatus, return and a long reign

After Encore (2004), Eminem stepped back, struggling with a prescription drug addiction he would later write about openly. He returned with Relapse (2009) and then Recovery (2010), the best-selling album worldwide of that year, which spawned the Rihanna collaboration “Love the Way You Lie” and the recovery anthem “Not Afraid,” both certified Diamond. Recovery framed his comeback as a public reckoning with the addiction that nearly ended his career, and audiences responded by making it the year’s biggest album worldwide. He kept the run going with The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (2013), Revival (2017), Kamikaze (2018), Music to Be Murdered By (2020) and The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) (2024). Along the way he became the first artist to have ten albums in a row debut at number one on the Billboard 200, and he built his own label, Shady Records, which signed acts including 50 Cent.

Awards and legacy

Eminem has won fifteen Grammy Awards from dozens of nominations, along with American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards and an Academy Award. In 2022 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Beyond the trophies, his influence on rap is hard to overstate: a generation of rappers learned phrasing, internal rhyme and storytelling from his records, and his classic run from The Slim Shady LP through The Eminem Show is still studied as a high point of the genre.

Three names, one writer

Part of what makes Eminem distinctive is the way he splits himself across personas. Slim Shady is the cartoonish, deliberately offensive provocateur; Marshall Mathers is the wounded, confessional voice writing about his mother, his ex-wife and his daughter; and Eminem is the technician, the battle rapper who treats a verse like a puzzle of internal rhymes and shifting cadences. Songs like “Stan” and “Mockingbird” show the confessional side, “The Real Slim Shady” and “Without Me” show the prankster, and “Rap God” is almost a showcase of pure technique, packing in more words per minute than most rappers attempt in a whole song. Holding those modes together is a precise ear for rhythm that came out of years of Detroit open-mic battles, where the goal was to out-rhyme an opponent live, with no second takes. That training is audible in everything he records, and it is a big reason younger rappers still study his catalogue line by line.

Most loved songs

A starting point through his catalogue. Each title opens through the in-site player.

From rapid-fire showpieces to confessional ballads, Eminem’s songs cover a huge emotional range. If a line of his is stuck in your head, type it into the search box above and it will lead you straight back to the track.