Eminem Biography

Eminem is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter, and actor. Member of the hip-hop group D12 and half of the hip-hop duo Bad Meets Evil and one of the best-selling artists of the 2000s in the States.

Early Life

By his birth name Marshall Bruce Mathers III and born in St. Joseph, Missouri in the US on 17 October 1972 he is the only child of Marshall Bruce Mathers Jr. And Deborah “Debbie” Rae Nelson. Eminem has English, Scottish, German and Swiss origins. His parents were also musicians, playing in a band called Daddy Warbucks touring the Ramada Inns along the Dakotas-Montana border before their break up. Bruce, Eminem’s father, left the family and moved to California, having two other children. During his childhood, Eminem moved around several times in Missouri and Michigan State and they never stayed in one house for more than a year or two. As a teenager, the rapper wrote letters to his father and according to his mother all the letters returned with stamp “return to sender”. He was happy in his childhood, but he was “a bit of a loner” and often had been bullied. Eminem grew up mostly in lower-middle class and primarily black Detroit neighborhood. Before being interested in hip hop he was interested in storytelling and he aspired to a comic-book artist career. He was very attached to his uncle, Debbie’s half-brother Ronnie Polkinghorn. Eminem discovered his first rap song “Reckless” from Ice-T through a gift from Ronnie and later was devasted when Polkinghorn committed suicide in 1991. Eminem worked several jobs to help her mother pay the bills but she often threw him out of the house anyway.  Every time she was out to play bingo, he would write songs and turn the stereo very loud.

First Steps in Music

He began rapping at the age of 14 with his high-school friend Mike Ruby with the names “Manix” and “M&M”, and later “M&M” evolved into “Eminem”. Eminem together with his friend and fellow rapper Proof went to Osborn High School in the lunchroom for freestyle rap battles. Every Saturday young Eminem with his friends attended open-mic contests on West 7 Mile Hip-Hop Shop, considered to be the ground-zero for the Detroit rap scene. He was struggling to succeed in a predominantly black industry, but he was appreciated by the underground hip hop audience and his reputation grew and later he joined several rap groups such as New Jacks, Soul Intent, or his famous Dirty Dozen(D12) with whom released their first album “Devil’s Night” in 2001. Also, Eminem reached success when he developed Slim Shady a more sadistic violent version of him and the alter ego helped him express his anger about drugs, rape or even murder. “The Slim Shady” LP was released in February 1999 and put him on the hip-hop map having an incredible success going triple platinum and becoming a best seller that year. He was accused of plagiarism and of imitating the style of the underground rapper Cage.

Personal Life

Eminem was married twice to Kimberly Anne “Kim” Scott whom he met in high school, he was 15 and she was 13 when he was rapping LL Cool J’s “I’m Bad” for her. After Kim run away from home, she moved in with Eminem and his mother when she was 15, and they had an on-and-off relationship starting from 1989. They had a daughter, Hailie, born on December 25, 1995. Eminem and Kim got married in 1999 and divorced in 2001 and the rapper remarried her in January 2006. After the divorce, he agreed on the custody of Hailie and he later adopted Alaina, Dawn’s daughter, and Whitney, Kim’s daughter from a previous relationship. He later had some drug problems and called Elton John who helped him for 18 months to kick his addiction to Vicodin and Ambien.

International Recognition

The Song “Rap God” entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the song with the most words (1560 words with an average of 4.28 words per second in 6:04 minutes). Eminem is one of the most influential rappers in the States and his rage and anger helped him outburst into a big artist worldwide, one of the most influential rappers of the 2000s.

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