Not too many MCs have made as massive of an impact on Hip Hop and pop culture as Eminem. Love him or hate him, Em’s album sales don’t lie — he sold more units than any other artist just last year.
On May 23, 2000, the Detroit-bred rap titan released his third studio album, The Marshall Mathers LP. It served as the follow-up to The Slim Shady LP, which had won a Grammy Award in the Best Rap Album category the year prior.
Produced by Dr. Dre, the 18-track project was created in a two-month “creative binge” and often included 20-hour studio sessions. In an old interview with VH1, Dre explained, “We don’t wake up at two in the morning, call each other, and say, ‘I have an idea. We gotta get to the studio.’ We just wait and see what happens when we get there.”
The result was a Billboard 200 chart-topping album that cemented Slim Shady’s international rap star status. It sold roughly 1.76 million copies in its first week, making it the fastest-selling rap album in history.
The MMLP would go on to be certified diamond by the RIAA, meaning it has sold over 10 million copies since its release.
It would also spawn a new word that is now included in both the Oxford Dictionary and Merriam-Webster thanks to “Stan” featuring singer Dido.
The song finds Em wrestling with his newfound celebrity status through the eyes of an obsessed fan named Stan. The powerful video has racked up over 241 million YouTube views over the years.
Other highlights included “The Way I Am,” which was actually a last minute addition to the album. Feeling pressure from Interscope Records to make another “My Name Is,” he pumped out “The Way I Am” in an attempt to shut them up.
He also penned “The Real Slim Shady” toward the end of the sessions. Both tracks ended up being singles with the latter winning a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance in 2001.
But Eminem wouldn’t be Eminem without some controversy. Several politicians slammed Shady’s often violent, misogynistic and homophobic content. During a United States Senate hearing, Dick Cheney’s wife Lynne blasted the song “Kill You.”
“[He’s] a rap singer who advocates murder and rape,” she said. “He talks about murdering and raping his mother. He talks about choking women slowly so he can hear their screams for a long time. He talks about using O.J.’s machete on women, and this is a man who is honored by the recording industry.”
Ontario Attorney General Jim Flaherty also tried to have Em stopped at the Canadian border. “I personally don’t want anyone coming to Canada who will come here and advocate violence against women,” Flaherty said in a 2000 interview with The Globe and Mail newspaper.
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) organization also protested Em’s work.
Here’s Eminem’s Discography Ranked From Bottom To Top
Despite the pushback – even from peers such as pop singer Christina Aguilera who he dissed on “The Real Slim Shady” — the album still took home the gilded trophy for Best Rap Album.
Revisit The Marshall Mathers LP in its entirety below.
Best album in hip-hop history. I am now waiting for a wave of criticism from black racists. Eminem showed how hip hop should be done. F**k all this shit albums about a difficult life on the street, about how you traded drugs, about your cars, hoes and other secondary shit. Im not white, im yellow.
Eminem is the best rapper ever period. He absolutely SHITS on guys like Tupac, Biggie, Nas, and Jay-Z both lyrically and with his flow, multiple styles, speed, and creativity. No other rapper could come out with shit like “My Name Is” and then turn around and spit some gangsta type shit with 50 Cent and then turn back around and troll on albums like Relapse (and Encore tbh) and also be able to spit as fast as Tech N9ne on Rap God and Speedom.
Are you F out of your mine right now? This trash is better than illmatic!!!! Are you F crazy?
I am tired of constantly listening about “Illmatic”, I didn’t like this album at all. Nas is a average rapper for me, but people are repeating something that someone told them. AZ is a better songwriter than Nas, Cormega is better, but people are lazy and dn’t even want to check something they don’t hear in the media. I don’t feel any stories from “Illmatic”, it’s not my world.
One hell of an album. Still listen to this quite often, after all these years. Bought my copy when it was released.
His best album, his only real classic. Eminem Show is good, Slim Shady LP is good, not classics though. Anything after the Eminem Show has been bad to mediocre to decent.
SSLP is a slept on classic. You need to put it in context: dude straight out came out and destroyed the ”white rapper” stereotype by having a style never ever seen in rap. And yes, I know of Esham and Cage, none of them or anyone else comes close to what Em delivered in his Slim Shady persona. 97 Bonnie and Clyde is one of the most underappreciated hip hop songs ever. It’s essentially a love letter to his daughter, while at the same time being a story about him murdering his wife with Hailey being an accomplice. Sick, deranged, and absolutely dripping in razor sharp originality.
Speaking of originality, listen to the two verses of As the World Turns.. what the fuck is all that? Its so weird yet so enticing and simply genious. His wit comes across in every bar, and while the song makes zero sense in itself you still kept coming back to it and tried to visualize what the fuck he was saying. Original, witty.
Again: put it in context of when the album came out, what it did originality wise and what it meant for a very casually looking white kid to come out with such a unusual rap persona. He came out swinging and left everyone floored. He sledgehammered all stereotypes about the corny wigger archtype and proved he’s worth his weight by going over and above basically everyone else coming out at the time. For every new bar you heard on SSLP for the first time, you had full attention because you couldnt even imagine what other off the wall, hilarious or straight up sick shit he would say.
Also, the adlibs and mouth-sound effects in SSLP are still second to none.
The only other debute that breaks as many stereotypes and is so groundbreaking in its unappologetic is College Dropout. SSLP is without a doubt a classic.
Bro SSLP is far from slept on what are you even talking about?!
I didn’t say it was slept on, I said it’s a slept on classic. Meaning, people do appreciate it but not for the classic it is.
This is white people’s trash! Entire album is trash just like listening to a Cat And Hat readings! Eminem vs Dr. Seuss
And this is why Eminem murdered you on your own shit. #Ether
Just mad if you are the real jay z his music is always better than your
Sound like somebody is worried
This anti-white crap is embarrassing. Guess he was rapping to you about the bars going over your head.
Such a shame you search Em postings to be racist and not accurate.
May be he should wrap about shagging other guys women or about Gold or money….
Try lyric genius if you struggle
If Jay Z is white no one gonna listen. J albums are thrash, overrated and worse.
Man this album is so corny and overrated. No jeep beats !
Lay off the sizzurp you braindead moron
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If eminem was black would be a bigger legend among black people than 2Pac or Biggie 😀 So many black people don’t like him because he is… white. LOL
If he was black he would be dead. They wouldn’t have let him become that big.
Lol what? Who’s “they”? Tupac wasn’t killed by the CIA or government haha. The hip hop artists who are killed… Are almost always killed by other black men. Generally gangsters, and because they got involved in gang shit. I love Tupac, but before hsi death, he was violent, making verbal threats to all kinds of east coast cats, all while hating on his own label mates Dre and Snoop. Only jackasses think people like Pac were assassinated by illuminati hahahaha.
Simply put, even Eminem can’t record an album like Marshall Mathers LP anymore.
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For one all you people trying to compare Jay z to em are obviously black and don’t realize that Jay z is the most over rated rapper ever. He had one good album. Em has had 4 that I would say nobody can touch. Marshall Mathers lp was the best and nobody will ever sell a album as fast as that one did. Almost 2mill in a week. Now adays artist can’t even sell a mil in a month. Em is still selling and still rapping circles around everyone. Not because of his skin color it is because he is dope period. Name one rapper that has sold more than him or even close. 2pac is 2nd and he is dead. Rappers can’t even catch up to a dead person album sales that he captured 20+ years ago. Em is the only one who has. It’s just jealousy and racist dumbasses with nothing better to do with there miserable life’s. SHADY
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