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Marshall Mathers Essay

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Marshall Mathers

Marshall Mathers, better known as Eminem, was born on October 17, 1972 in St. Joseph, Missouri to a single mother. He spent the majority of his youth living in various states before eventually settling down in the harsh streets of Detroit at the age of 12. At age nine, Em was first introduced to rap by his Uncle Ronni who played the Breakin’ soundtrack for him and immediately Em loved it. He began obsessively studying and lip-synching LL Cool J‘s and Ice T’s skilled and complex rhyme schemes and styles. At a young age Em found his niche now all he had to do was discover his voice.

After failing 9th grade three times for lack of involvement, Em eventually just dropped out of school all together and started to …show more content…

Although he finished second, his freestyles impressed many including Paul Rosenberg who later became his manager and Interscope label president Jimmy Iovine. Later that year he won the Wake Up Show’s Freestyle Performer of the Year and was featured in Source’s Unsigned Hype column. After these honors, Rosenberg and Iovine were convinced that Em would be the future of rap. All they now needed was confirmation, so they took Em’s material to the legendary producer/rapper Dr. Dre.

Immediately, Dr. Dre loved Em’s creative rhymes and lyrics. After Dre got over the initial shock of that Em was white, they worked out a deal and Em joined Aftermath, Dre’s record company. With Dre by his side there was no looking back. They immediately hit it off and his first album on Aftermath, The Slim Shady LP, hit stores in early 1999. With the multi-platinum single, “My Name Is”, The Slim Shady LP went triple platinum. This was the beginning of a new era in rap, a rap revolution started by the high school dropout, Eminem.

A lab rat, Em went right back to work on his next album. His hunger for success was now at an all-time high. The Marshall Mathers LP blew up from day one and debuted number 1 on the Billboard Charts selling close to two million copies in its first week. This established him as the most successful rapper in terms of album sales since 2pac and The

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