Eminem

Eminem

Overview

• Discography

• Filmography

Eminem
Born	Marshall Bruce Mathers III October 17, 1972 Saint Joseph, MO
Other names	Em Evil Slim Shady
Family
Parents	Deborah Nelson † Marshall Mathers Jr. †
Spouse	Kimberly Scott (m. 1999; div. 2001) (m. 2006; div. 2006)
Children	Hailie Jade Alaina Marie Stevie Laine
Musical career
Genre	Hip-Hop
Labels
Member of	Bad Meets Evil • D12 • New Jacks • Soul Intent
First album	Infinite
Latest album	The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)
Website	eminem.com

“	I want to do things that nobody from this point on can ever top. Rap to a level that no one else could get to. And again, it's subjective, and every rapper, especially rappers in competitive rap, wants to be the best rapper. So, I look for the younger generation to push me. I don't have to make albums. I don't have to do anything at this point. It's about wanting to, and that's never changed for me no matter what level the fame's gotten to. I still love to rap. It's always been the most important thing to me.	”
—Eminem's 2022 XXL interview

Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), professionally known as Eminem (also stylized as EMINƎM), is an American rapper, songwriter, and record producer. He is credited with popularizing hip hop in Middle America and is regarded as among the greatest rappers of all time. His success is considered to have broken racial barriers to the acceptance of white rappers in popular music. While much of his transgressive work during the late 1990s and early 2000s made him a controversial figure, he came to be a representation of popular angst of the American underclass and has been cited as influencing many musical artists.

Eminem is among the best-selling music artists of all time, with estimated worldwide sales of over 220 million records. He was the best-selling music artist in the United States of the 2000s and the best-selling male music artist in the United States of the 2010s, third overall.

He has won numerous awards, including 15 Grammy Awards, eight American Music Awards, 17 Billboard Music Awards, an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and an MTV Europe Music Global Icon Award. In November 2022, Eminem was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Outside of his solo career, he was part of the hip hop group D12 and rap duo Bad Meets Evil.

Biography

Mathers was born on October 17, 1972 in St. Joseph, Missouri, to Deborah Mathers-Briggs (née Nelson) and Marshall Mathers Jr. He is of Scottish, English and German ancestry. Shortly after his birth, his father abandoned his family. His mother later had a son named Nathan "Nate" Kane Samara.

Until he was 13, Eminem and his mother shuttled between states, rarely staying in one house for more than a year or two and mostly living with family members, moved several times and lived in several towns and cities in Missouri (including St. Joseph, Savannah, and Kansas City) and Metro Detroit area (Warren and Roseville) before settling in the city of Detroit. For much of his youth, Eminem and his mother lived in a working-class, primarily Black, Detroit neighborhood. He and Debbie were one of three white households on their block, and Eminem was beaten several times by Black youths.

Eminem frequently fought with his mother, whom a social worker described as her having a "very suspicious, almost paranoid personality". When he was a child, a bully named D'Angelo Bailey severely injured Eminem's head in an assault, an incident which Eminem later recounted (with comic exaggeration) on the song "Brain Damage". Debbie filed a lawsuit against the public school for this in 1982. The suit was dismissed the following year by a Macomb County, Michigan, judge, who said the schools were immune from lawsuits.

Eminem was interested in storytelling, aspiring to be a comic book artist before discovering hip hop. He heard his first rap song ("Reckless", featuring Ice-T) on the Breakin' soundtrack, a gift from Debbie's half-brother, Ronnie Polkingharn. His uncle was close to the boy and later became a musical mentor to him. When Polkingharn committed suicide in 1991, Eminem stopped speaking publicly for days and did not attend his funeral.

After Mathers became interested in hip hop, he started performing amateur raps at age fourteen under the pseudonym "M&M", the latter evolving into "Eminem". Mathers snuck into neighboring Osborn High School with friend and fellow rapper Proof for lunchroom freestyle rap battles. On Saturdays, they attended open mic contests at the Hip-Hop Shop on West 7 Mile Road, considered "ground zero" for the Detroit rap scene. Struggling to succeed in a predominantly black industry, Eminem was appreciated by underground hip hop audiences. When he wrote verses, he wanted most of the words to rhyme; he wrote long words or phrases on paper and, underneath, worked on rhymes for each syllable. Although the words often made little sense, the drill helped Eminem practice sounds and rhymes.

In 1987, Debbie allowed runaway Kimberly "Kim" Scott and her twin sister Dawn to stay at their home. Several years later, Eminem began an on-and-off relationship with Kim. After spending three years in ninth grade due to truancy and poor grades, he dropped out of Lincoln High School at age 17. Although interested in English, Eminem never explored literature (preferring comic books) and he disliked math and social studies. Eminem worked at several jobs to help his mother pay the bills. One of the jobs he had was with Little Caesar's Pizza in Warren. He later said she often threw him out of the house anyway, often after taking most of his paycheck. When she left to play bingo, he would blast the stereo and write songs.

Discography

Main article: Discography

Studio albums

• Infinite (1996)
• The Slim Shady LP (1999)
• The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)
• The Eminem Show (2002)
• Encore (2004)
• Relapse (2009)
• Recovery (2010)
• The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (2013)
• Revival (2017)
• Kamikaze (2018)
• Music to Be Murdered By (2020)
• The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) (2024)

Compilation albums

• Curtain Call: The Hits (2005)
• Curtain Call 2 (2022)

Soundtrack albums

• 8 Mile (Music from and Inspired By the Motion Picture) (2002)
• Southpaw (Music from and Inspired By the Motion Picture) (2015)
• Stans (The Official Soundtrack) (2025)

Bibliography

• Angry Blonde (2000)
• The Way I Am (2008)

External links

• Eminem on Apple Music
• Eminem on YouTube
• Eminem on SoundCloud
• Eminem on Internet Movie Database
• Eminem on Spotify
• Eminem on Twitter
• Eminem on Facebook
• Eminem on Pandora
• Eminem on Instagram
• Eminem on Tidal
• Eminem on TikTok

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