Consider the landscape of 2000 when Eminem released The Marshall Mathers LP — the peak of CD buying and music consumption; MTV still had a large corner of the pop culture market with TRL and every September, the Video Music Awards.
With 1999’s The Slim Shady LP, Em proudly announced himself to the general public as a foul-mouthed, colorful shock rapper from Detroit who could turn a phrase. At the same time, he angered his direct family, conservatives, human rights organizations such as GLAAD and numerous critics. Marshall Mathers had become an anti-hero. A year later, he was the hottest rapper in the world, a heat magnet for any group willing to protest him and villain for the wife of a future Vice President.
To understand the moment, here are a few facts to help crystalize why Eminem, in 2000, was as big a supernova as pop culture and music ever saw.
The Biggest Hip Hop Sales Week – Ever
The 1.76 million copies it sold in its opening frame is the most ever for a rap album, more than doubling the previous record-holder — Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle in 1993. MMLP was such a sales juggernaut that it sold over half a million copies for four consecutive weeks. No album has come close to it from a rap standpoint and probably won’t given the current streaming climate. Worldwide? It sold over 35 million copies, quickly becoming one of the biggest Hip Hop albums, ever.
MMLP Added To The English Language
Arguably the best song on the album “Stan” is a near-seven minute odyssey about one Eminem fan who took his lyrics to an obsessive and ultimately fatal point. The obsessive concept, where fandom become whole identities for some people eventually made “stan” a term that landed in the Oxford Dictionary in 2017. It was later added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary in April 2019.
Steve Berman Is An Actual Person
Anyone familiar with any Eminem album since MMLP knows Steve Berman is a familiar character who pops in from time to time. The first appearance of Berman comes just before “The Way I Am,” Em’s shot at Interscope after being frustrated they thought he didn’t have a “hit” for this album.
For the first decade of major label Em releases, Berman was used as the physical representation of Interscope, culminating with Em shooting him on The Eminem Show. The two patched things up by Relapse but even then, Berman wasn’t looking forward to seeing Em. Berman was the actual President of Sales and Marketing at Interscope Records at the time and has been there since 1991. He’s now Vice Chairman of the label.
The Album Was Almost Titled Amsterdam
The crux of MMLP came during a promotional world tour and stop in the Netherlands. Planted in a city that made Las Vegas excess appeal as tame as apple pie, Em saw everyone doing and felt at home. “Everyone doing drugs — all the time, everywhere,” he said.
Once the pressures of actual life kicked in (a $10 million defamation lawsuit from his mother Debbie, his absentee father returning like Will Smith’s dad on The Fresh Prince), all the angst of America drowned out the liberation of Amsterdam.
“Kim” Was Too Explicit To Be Censored
The most controversial song on MMLP (a shock considering what it’s stacked up against) is “Kim.” The song, featuring Em outright murdering his ex-wife, is a direct sequel to “’97 Bonnie & Clyde” from The Slim Shady LP. Instead of even attempting to censor the song for the clean version of the album, it was ultimately replaced by “The Kids,” a juvenile PSA from Em in the vein of a South Park character warning a class about ecstasy and reefer madness.
Fat Joe Declares Eminem Unfuckwitable In Verzuz Instagram Battles
Marshall Mathers couldn’t figure out why he, a bleached-blond rapper who had cut his teeth rhyming with practically everybody for years had become the biggest star in the world. He used people such as Lynne Cheney to make his lyrics become part of Congressional record on the Senate floor because she had deemed him the worst thing to America. During a September 2000 Congressional, Cheney, the wife of then-Vice Presidential candidate Dick Cheney, determined him to be “despicable and shameful” and used the lyrics of “Kill You” as her biggest example. For the middle of the country and beyond, Em represented an untapped voice, one that managed to merge the rock aspects of The Warped Tour along with Hip Hop’s Up In Smoke Tour. To them, he was their introduction to “real” Hip Hop.
In the years since The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem’s cultural impact continued to grow. By 2003, he was an Oscar winner and considered the most popular rapper in the world. Through it all, Em never stopped trying to provoke a response out of people.
In the one year where it all came together, he created a cultural time capsule into fame, anger and identity. That’s the biggest legacy of The Marshall Mathers LP, it made Eminem the avatar for an entire generation of Hip Hop fans.
This article was lifted from what culture
Also this album was lifted from the trash.
This is also around the time Eminem became connected to epstein and underage girls.
Another fact – Eminem has a micro penis.
Marshall mathers lp was shocking when it first came out. But you go bacm and listen now and it is garbage.
? You’re fucking nuts
Eminem himself said in an interview that he thinks his flow on the first 2 albums were off. The album only sold because it was shocking/controversial stuff. Ye em is a good poet, but he has no rhythm whatsoever.
Dont worry guys, ive almost killed black music completely, almost done!
Marshall Mathers LP has been hailed by a number of dope rappers like Prodigy et al. It was a stellar album because it resonated with what it meant to be fed up with the hypocrisies in White America. Hate it or love it, it sold like hot cakes because many people actually bought it.
Holy shit i forgot all about prodigy. There music was the shit, ‘smack my bitch up’ & ‘fire starter’ were my jams.
Prodigy…from Mobb Deep playa, not that fool from the group prodigy
U really think they dont know that dumb ass?? U the one that needs to learn something, hahahaha
Dummy, u think he doesnt know that? He trolled the original post by mentioning the group when clearly it was about prodigy from mobb deep. Lol, u need to go and learn something, lol.
Dumb ass u just played urself
Out of Space was fire. Too bad Keith whacked himself. Rip
Thes comments are dumb as shit
A gay sex skit, a screaming song killing his wife, a childish chorus thats not even real words (under the influence), a chorus where he rhymes the same word over and over (i am, i am, i am blah blah blah) this album sold because it was controversial, but this album besides dres beats, is straight garbage.
You know the album pretty well considering it’s 20 years old and you’re not a fan of it…
I was a teen when it came out, of course i do. Thats the problem, most people were teens hearing it, thats why it sold so much
He mentions 4 of the 18 tracks and u say he knows the album well?? Go jump off a bridge u butt hurt white boy.
Eminem got bodied by Sticky Fingaz on remember me.
Six sick dreams of picnic scenes
Two kids, sixteen, with M-16’s and ten clips each
And them shits reach through six kids each
And Slim gets blamed in Bill Clint’s speech to fix these streets?!
Lol is that meant to be impressive?? ???
King Mathers OWNS these niggas! He took their hiphop crap, and made it awesome! Then sold MILLIONS more records than ANY OF THEM! it was only fair tho, considering English language is used in the most popular hiphop music, and thay came from white people. So it’s all give and take, na mean? But I don’t think black people fully understand the English language yet. Give it another few centuries, they’ll get the hang of it!
White people have never invented anything, they only steal. They didnt even invent the english language, they just named it. So try again little boy.
while i dont agree with how he words it he is right. but yet u somehow bring an entire race into the mix when hes talking about one person… interesting.
Eminem is a racist pos with a small dick. End of discussion.
This message board is ridiculous. How, during the middle of an anti racism movement, can so many small minded people think anti racism means being the same way we were treated back, back to them? The past is the past, and the same thing wont change the future…stepping up and working together as people of the world, equally, and without malice, is the only way to create change, regardless of the resentment we feel.
Damn this site is full of haters, that hate energy ain’t gonna do you no good.