Eminem

Marshall Bruce Mathers III, known professionally as Eminem, born October 17, 1972, in St. Joseph, Missouri, and raised in Warren and Detroit, Michigan, is widely regarded as the greatest technical rapper in hip-hop history, an artist whose ferocious lyrical density, complex internal rhyme schemes, storytelling ability, and autobiographical rawness transformed the genre in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Growing up in poverty in predominantly Black neighborhoods of Detroit, raised largely by his mother Debbie in the absence of a father who abandoned the family when he was an infant, Eminem found solace and identity in hip-hop at age fourteen, developing his skills in Detroit's ferociously competitive underground rap battle scene as a white rapper among predominantly Black participants — an outsider experience sharpening both his skill and his hunger. He released his independent debut Infinite in 1996 and came to the attention of Dr. Dre after his demo tape for The Slim Shady LP reached Dre at the 1997 Rap Olympics in Los Angeles. Dr. Dre signed him to Interscope and produced The Slim Shady LP (1999), The Marshall Mathers LP (2000) — which remains the fastest-selling solo album in history — and The Eminem Show (2002), making him the best-selling artist of the 2000s across all genres. His semi-autobiographical film 8 Mile (2002) won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for Lose Yourself, the first rap song to win the prize. He struggled with prescription drug addiction in the late 2000s before returning with Recovery (2010), the best-selling album of 2010. Kamikaze (2018) and Music to Be Murdered By (2020) demonstrated his technical skills remain at the summit of the genre. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.