Eminem

Marshall Bruce Mathers III aka Eminem or Slim Shady was born on the 17th of October 1972. Now he is 46 . Eminem has had a strange life with a lot of troubles.

Em’ was born in Saint Joseph in the state of Missouri but he lived a big part of his childhood in Detroit, after his father left when he was only a couple of months . His mother had to educate him alone when she was only 15 and she was a drug addict so Marshall had to educate himself. When he was living in Detroit , he was harassed because of his colour.

His uncle Ronald was like a father for Eminem and it’s because of him that he wanted to become a rapper before he wanted to become a cartoonist .
When he was 8, a boy named Angelo Bailey and his friend hit him until he fell into a coma. When he woke up, his uncle Ronald came to visit him at the hospital and gave him a rap tape. After this, Eminem fell in love with rap and he decided to create a group with his uncle. But the day after the creation of the group, Ronnie killed himself because of a girl .

After this tragic event, Marshall started his career alone and he left school to help his mother to pay the bills. He didn’t like school, he repeated three times. Then he started working in a factory during the day, and at night he went to rap battles. In these rap battles he met the first person who believed in him and his best friend « Proof ». With him and other guys, they created a group « D12 » , and all the members had to choose a pseudonym; for Eminem it was « Slim Shady » and with this character he could tell everything that everyone thinks but nobody says .

Success took time to come for Em’ but it came after the song « The real Slim Shady ». After this song, everyone in the world knew who Eminem was and more specifically who Slim Shady was.
After this success he made an album «  Marshall Mathers LP » including songs like : Stan, Kim or also The way I am. Now that he was famous, a lot of kids were listening to his music and as he used bad words, Slim Shady became parents’ first enemy.

On his family side, Em’ s relations with his mother are still cold and she sues him because he has insulted her in a few songs. Marshall was married with Kim, a high school classmate but they divorced a year after their marriage. A little after they tried again but it didn’t work. They have a daughter: « Hailie ». Eminem speaks a lot about her; he also made a song litterally named « Hailie’s song ».
Kim said one time that Marshall is not a good husband but a great father. He also has two adopted daughters: Alaina (who has started rap ) and Withney.

In his career there is no problem. He played in his autobiographic movie «8 miles» which made a global success in part because of the soundtrack: «Lose Yourself» by Eminem who won the Oscar for best soundtrack of the year, and EM’ wasn’t even there to take it; he was with Hailie watching cartoons. After this wonderful success that he deserved, he continued his musical career with more fans and the same talent. He made songs like: Rap god, Mockingbird, Monster, Not Afraid, Till I Colapse and more recently: Fall or Lucky you.

Even if his career is incredible, his private life is more complicated: his best friend is dead ( he got killed by a gang ), a lot of people think that he is homophobic, his mother continues her suing and she wants money. Even one of the boys who bullied him in school is also suing him because Eminem said his name in the song « Brain damage ». Because of all these issues he became addicted to drugs to forget all his problems and he made a pause in his musical career. He went to rehab and when he came out, he was alive more than ever and he said his motivation was of course Hailie but also the fact that he doesn’t want to be like his mother. When he totally recovered, he resumed his career and his first song was « Not Afraid » and he speaks openly about his addictions without shame.

Eminem’s success is huge because he speaks about everything and he is ashamed of nothing.
Music is his therapy. He brought something new that nobody had done before; he is also the most awarded rapper in the world. He won: an Oscar, 10 billboard, 15 grammys, 27 MTV awards, 5 Brit awards, 7 Teen Choice awards and a lot of others. He is also the only rapper who had two certified diamond albums. Eminem’s fans are not always happy, when it’s bad they say it, they are honest; and for the album « Revival » we all were disappointed but now Em’ has released a new album « Kamikaze » and everyone is ok with the fact that he is incredible .
Eminem is famous around the world again and it’s not finished for The Rap God !

Mouna MAALOUMI and Fredéric TRANCHIDA