Marshall Bruce Mathers was born in Kansas City, Missouri on October 17,1972. The poor young kid grew up in several states while moving constantly with his mom. Always being on the move the young Marshall had a tough time making friends, but he seemed to entertain himself with comic books, television and music. His early music influences were NWA, LLCoolJ, and 2 Live Crew. He ended up living in the city of Detroit, Michigan, where he started rhyming early in his short lived high school career and became well known as a "rhymer". The Slim Shady had a little bit of a difficulty with attending class, so he ended up dropping out at the end of ninth grade and joined groups of D12 and the New Jacks. From then on he began to work odd jobs and focus on mastering his rhyming ability which would eventually put him on top of the world. 

In 1997 Eminem released a raw debut album through an independent label called FBT which was called Infinite. This album took a crap in comparison to leading rappers like AZ and Naz. Eminem busted out with the determination to succeed and say f@#ck you to all his critics. He represented himself by winning the Wake Up Show's Freestyle Performer of the Year Award, and finished runner-up in Los Angeles' annual rap Olympics.

In 1998 Eminem released The Slim Shady EP, named after his wickedly evil side of his personality, the record defined a style that took no prisoners with tracks like " I JUST DON"T GIVE A F$#CK." This album became a success that led him to guest appearances on MC Shabaam Sahdeq's "Five Star Generals" single and Kid Rock's Devil Without A Cause set. Slim Shady stood out on the spot light and was quickly signed by Aftermath records which is presidented by rap pioneer Dr.Dre. Dre took in the rapper as his protege and acted as co-producer on Eminem's full-length debut. Dre's beats with Eminem's rhymes became a combination of pure genius that was released in 1999 as the SLIM SHADY LP. This album contained violently twisted lyrics with optimum beats that flew off the shelves selling 3 million copies. The frequent verbal outbursts about his mother in his lyrics were percieved by many to be immoral and irresponsible, but Slim continued with a ruthless vengence that got many activist attention. Eminem's claim to be voicing words through his evil side Slim Shady is merely just a form of expressing his feelings in a way of therapy.

Eminem's mother sued her son for $10 million two years after he claimed in his hit single "My Name Is" that she smokes more dope than he does. His mother felt amongst other things, emotional stress and damage to her reputation and lowering her self esteem to a level that is unbearable. The impact of this lawsuit on Em's career was irrelevant due to the follow up albulm the MARSHALL MATHERS LP, that sold over 4 million copies in the year of 2000. The albulm changed the face of the hip-hop world forever as it hit the top of the charts in May of 2000, this established him as one of the most succesfull rappers since Snoop Doggy Dogg and 2Pac. The album contains monster hits like "The Real Slim Shady" and others like "The Way I Am" and "Stan". By the end of the year Eminem ran into some troubles with the law when he was charged with assault that removed the gloss from the phenomenon's success. Gay rights groups began to strike the media with anger against the star because of his lyrics, but it didn't seem to matter when he cleaned up the Grammy Awards that following February. Marshall reunited with his D12 colleagues to record the transatlantic chart-topping Devil's Night. Eminem's new studio album, The Eminem Show, was premiered by single "Without Me". The track which debuted at UK #1 in May 2002, featuring a sample from Malcolm McLaren's "Buffalo Girls" and was supported by a controversial video which saw the star dressing up as Osama Bin Laden. The album kicked up to the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Later that same year Eminem made his mainstream acting debut in the movie 8 Mile where he played a similar role to his life of growing up. The hit single from the soundtrack,"Lose Yourself", gave the rapper his first US #1 single in November and remained at the top of the charts well into 2003.