It took him just over a year to make good on this, and, upon doing so, he catapulted rap to the forefront of the pop world in ways previously unknown. His follow-up album, The Marshall Mathers LP , contained the same provocative lyricism but took things a step further, unleashing his vitriol at both ex-lovers and pop-culture figures alike. The Marshall Mathers LP would propel Eminem to an unfathomable level of fame, but, stylistically, he would spend most of his career in a lane all his own. It was a surreal and meta moment for an MC who raps about winning an MTV Award and having to sit next to the very pop stars he eviscerates in his music. Eminem never followed tradition, but as the third track — and second song proper — on The Marshall Mathers LP , a seven-minute concept song that sampled Dido was one of the last things anyone expected.
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Credited with popularizing hip hop in Middle America , Eminem's global success and acclaimed works are widely regarded as having broken racial barriers for the acceptance of white rappers in popular music. While much of his transgressive work during the early s made him hugely controversial, he came to be a representation of popular angst and the American underclass. He has been influential for many artists of various genres and is often cited as one of the greatest rappers of all time. After the release of his next album, Encore , Eminem went on hiatus in partly due to a prescription drug addiction. Recovery was the best-selling album worldwide of , making it Eminem's second album, after The Eminem Show in , to be the best-selling album of the year worldwide.
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It might be the most divisive album in music, but the Detroit MC's magnum opus also offered refuge to a generation of disenfranchised teens. To date, Eminem has sold over million records worldwide. But while the album was wildly popular, it was also heavily criticised. Spewing out shock and awe with unrelenting aggression at every turn, he left no-one out of his firing line. I have to admit, though, that as a younger man I was more focused on how the album felt like an antidepressant, a type of audio medication, one that offered me a break from the volatile upbringing I was forced to endure as a year-old living with an alcoholic mother and, before he was kicked out of the house, a sometimes violent father.
Joseph, Missouri , U. Mathers had a turbulent childhood, marked by poverty and allegations of abuse. At age 14 he began rapping in clubs in Detroit , Michigan , and, when unexcused absences kept him in the ninth grade for the third year, he quit school, determined to make it in hip-hop music.
