A Journey Out the Projects
The Story of Eminem’s rough ride to music’s peak.
“If you had one shot, or one opportunity to seize everything you’ve ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it or just let it slip?” Most of us know, or at least have heard this quote before from the song “Lose Yourself.” It was said by the one and only Eminem, Slim Shady, Marshall Mathers, B-Rabbit, a man of many names. He didn’t just say these things, he lived it out in a life of passion for his music. Eminem did something different in his music that made millions flock to him, he made his music relatable with a passion and energy that ignited his listeners. Eminem talked about his life through his music and the story of a troubled and violent white kid who grew up in poverty and abuse was something the entire world was interested in.
Growing up on the rough side of Detroit with a single mother, life was not easy for the young Marshall. His father left when he was only 14 months old. Marshall and his dad have never been on good terms and, being that Eminem writes about what he has a passion for in his personal life, in his song “Rhyme or Reason” he says “Who’s your daddy? I don’t know him. Has he taken any time to show you what you need to live? NO! if he had he wouldn’t have ended up in these rhymes on my pad, I wouldn’t be so mad, my attitude wouldn’t be so bad, yeah, dad.” It was this broken relationship with his father that drove him to write these lines, and many more openly dissing his father.
“He’s a problem child, and what bothers him all comes out when he talks about his f****** dad walkin’ out.” -Sing for the Moment
While still living with his mother Marshall was constantly moving back and forth between different homes. As a consequence, he became very secluded from the world and was bullied extensively due to the fact he was white living in a predominantly black area. He addresses this bullying most notably in his song “Brain Damage” where Eminem says, “I was harassed daily by this fat kid named D’Angelo Bailey.” The rest of the song going on to talk about all the bullying he received early in his life. The bullying even got so bad that at one point he was put into a coma for 10 days. At this young age Marshall had very little going for himself, but he was extremely creative. To hide from the bullying and abuse at home he would lock himself in his room where he would read comics and draw in his free time.
“I used to be the type of kid that would always think the sky is falling. Why am I so differently wired? Am I a martian?” -Legacy
Moving into his teenage years, things didn’t get much better for Marshall. As a freshman in high school he attended Lincoln High in Warren Michigan where he would proceed to fail the 9th grade a total of 3 times before dropping out at the age of 17. It was then when Marshall would slowly start to follow his passion of rap. As a teenager, he would often write raps looking through the dictionary and he claims to have even read the entire thing front to back. From there Marshall would get into the rap battle scene in Detroit under the name M&M, the name deriving from his initials. Outside of rapping Marshall began dating a girl by the name of Kim who, in his later years Eminem would release a song about titled “Kim.” His passion for rap often came from his personal life so it was not rare to hear him name drop people in his life. It was during this relationship that Marshall took a bullet one night while walking to visit her. These neighborhoods he grew up in were not safe places, and Marshall ran the risk of dying every day. Almost a year later Marshall himself was arrested for a drive by shooting where he fired off some paint balls at people.
As a young adult Marshall struggled intensely trying to provide for him, his girlfriend, and his family. As a job, he would wash dishes for as much as 60 hours a week at a local restaurant for minimum wage. At the time, this was his only source of income, but he was soon fired as he would often miss work in pursuit of his rapping. One winter he was let go just before Christmas and it broke his heart that he wouldn’t have any money to get his daughter a present. He wrote about this in his song Mockingbird saying “I remember back one year when daddy had no money mommy wrapped the Christmas presents up and stuck ’em under the tree and said some of ’em were from me ’Cause daddy couldn’t buy ’em. I’ll never forget that Christmas I sat up the whole night crying, ’Cause daddy felt like a bum.” Due to this lack of money Marshall and his family would soon be evicted from their home and he would have to put everything on the line to save them.
“Your mom was saving money for you in a jar Tryna start a piggy bank for you so you could go to college Almost had a thousand dollars till someone broke in and stole it And I know it hurt so bad it broke your momma’s heart” -Mockingbird
Not having any money or resources, Marshall decided that the only way he might be able to save his life would be to compete in the 1997 Rap Battle Olympics in Los Angeles. Not even having to money to get there, he managed to find a way to travel to California and it was at this competition that he blew the world away. Finishing in second place, Marshall was able to catch the eye of the of hit rapper Dr. Dre. The two would go on to collaborate together before Eminem dropped his first album with Dre called, “The Slim Shady LP” which went triple platinum. From there Eminem would continue to drop multi-platinum projects, all of them with songs based around his personal life. This was because Eminem never wrote songs for the mainstream, he was never a Hollywood artist, but he was always himself. He grew up with a passion for rap, and his inspiration for writing came from the struggles he suffered throughout his life. It was Eminem’s passion for rap that made him successful.
