Eminem Vinyl, CD & Tape

From M&M to Slim Shady

That not only Eminem’s sales figures are close to legends like the Beatles, but that he also redefined his whole genre in the same way is no longer up for debate. In 1972 Marshall Mathers was born in Missouri. His childhood was marked by the roughness of the trailer parks, poverty, an absent father and bullying at school, which is why he took refuge in rap music as a teenager. Ice-T, N.W.A. and the Beastie Boys inspired him to write his own lyrics under the name M&M, and at local rap battles he soon made a name for himself as a white rapper in the predominantly black neighborhood. He later captured this period in the autobiographical film 8 Mile. In the late ’80s, Mathers recorded his first demos, and also teamed up with his crew D12, which would later benefit from his solo success. 1996 marked the release of his first tape Infinite – and it flopped. " Infinite was me trying to figure out how I wanted my rap style to be," he says of it himself, and the mixed feedback to the more radio-friendly album inspired him to create an alter ego: Slim Shady was born. With his new persona, he broke taboos, talked about violence, sex and drugs, and attracted the attention of Interscope label boss Jimmy Iovine and rap legend Dr. Dre. The latter eventually brought him into the studio to record his second album.

he anti-hero of the nation

With the Slim Shady LP, Eminem finally broke into the mainstream in 1999: the record climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard 200, and the musician grew in a short time from a no-name rapper to a star who didn‘t mince words and received accusations of misogyny here and there. “I’m not a role model, and I don’t claim to be,” he says. The next logical step in his career was the founding of his own label, Shady Records, and just one year later the third album, The Marshall Mathers LP, was released, recorded in just two months. Eminem’s image as the nation’s anti-hero was further established here with glee, as the rapper dished it out to everyone who somehow got in his way. And yet: he sold millions, collected countless Grammys, and delivered with The Eminem Show two years later another record that soon became a classic. At the same time, he increasingly acted as a producer for other rappers. After the release of Encore, however, he soon fell into a crisis and disappeared from the scene.

Politics and Disstracks

The comeback followed in 2009 with Relapse, and the follow-up Recovery rose to become the best-selling album of 2010. He also formed the duo Bad Meets Evil with Royce da 5‘9 and recorded an EP in 2011, which also climbed straight to number one. With the Marshall Mathers LP 2 in 2012, on which Rick Rubin, among others, had sat at the controls, the rapper cemented his legendary status even further: features with Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar and Skylar Grey made the whole thing a nostalgic but explosive record, for which he again bagged a Grammy Award. After Donald Trump won the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Eminem also went viral with a video in which he lashed out against the right-wing politician by means of a freestyle, and in the same year the record Revival was released, followed by the surprise album Kamikaze, which also featured disstracks against a handful of artists. With Music to Be Murdered By, the rap giant has made himself comfortable on his throne: in addition to his status as one of the most successful musicians of all time, he is now considered a timeless legend not only in hip hop .