February 23, 1999: The Slim Shady LP is released. It introduces the world at large to Eminem.
Marshall Bruce Mathers III was born on October 17, 1972 in St. Joseph, Missouri, but his parents split up, and his mother took him to various places before settling in Detroit, in a mostly-black neighborhood where their small house was one of three on the block was one of three white households.
He was bullied at school for being poor, and found solace in the bulletproof raps of artists like Ice-T and LL Cool J. "We were on welfare, and my mom never ever worked. I'm not trying to give some sob story, like, 'Oh, I've been broke all my life,' but people who know me know it's true," Eminem revealed in a 1999 interview with Spin magazine.
He also explained there were times when friends had to buy him shoes, declaring: "I was poor white trash, no glitter, no glamour." This was a white rapper who was nonetheless part of the struggle of American cities, the kind of guy Robbie Van Winkle, a.k.a. Vanilla Ice, pretended to be at the decade's start.
Mathers wrote his first lyrics as a teenager, graduating to cult status within Detroit's battle-rap scene, where the witty emcee would astound opponents with his jugular-aiming freestyles. He called himself "Eminem" as a variation on his initials, altered to avoid legal issues with Mars, makers of M&M's candy; and "Slim Shady" from thinking he was skinny and wanting an alter ego "to separate his personal life from his more extreme and often shocking artistic expressions." He explained, "Slim Shady is the name for my temper or anger. Eminem is just the rapper. Slim Shady is the attitude behind him."
He released his debut album, The Slim Shady LP, on February 23, 1999. He instantly found credibility with hardcore rappers not just for his talent, but because his producer was Andre "Dr. Dre" Young, founder of Death Row Records and a former member of rap group N.W.A.
The biggest hit from the album was the 2nd song, "My Name Is." "His name," of course, was Slim Shady. And he was pretty shady, talking about harming himself and others, and being undecided about which Spice Girl he wanted to impregnate. The album had a song titled "Role Model." And another, seemingly contradictorily, titled "Guilty Conscience." And another, contradicting both, the album's closer, titled "Just Don't Give a Fuck." And another, perhaps explaining this split, and maybe the rest of the album, titled "Brain Damage." (Not the song previously made famous by Pink Floyd.)
Craig Jenkins, a music critic for Vulture magazine, believes there was a fundamental difference between Eminem and Elvis Presley: "It was always obvious that whiteness put Eminem on radars that not every other rapper was landing on," the music writer explains. "But the big difference between Em and Elvis is the latter was somewhat trying to make himself more palatable to more people, but the former is defined by the fact he seems to hate all the kinds of people there is to hate." Including his own people.
Thomas Hobbs of British newspaper The Guardian wrote of Em's music:
It's shocking to listen to, but the fact his nasal voice sounds like a mixture of a squeaky clown nose and a Midwestern court jester gives everything a cartoonish edge...
Eminem was the parent-advisory sticker provocateur who could include homophobic slurs in his raps -- but somehow still sincerely perform alongside Elton John, one of the world's famous gay musicians, at the 2001 Grammys.
Will Hermes of Entertainment Weekly called the lyrics of his 2nd album, The Marshall Mathers LP, released on May 23, 2000, "Indefensible and critic-proof, hypocritical and heart-breaking, unlistenable and undeniable."
The album is probably best known for "Stan," with a video with Eminem playing himself, and Canadian actor Devon Sawa as the title character, but Eminem reciting his lines. The song samples "Thank You" by British female singer Dido, who appears in the video as Stan's pregnant girlfriend. Its 1st 3 verses imagine Stan, a fan of Eminem's, writing him a series of letters, starting with a common idea of "I'm your biggest fan"; but after not receiving a response, the 2nd letter gets crazier, and the 3rd one tells of Stan driving off a bridge with his girlfriend in the trunk -- begging the question, "How is he writing this letter if he's talking in the present tense, which is pretty damn tense?"
The 4th verse has Eminem as himself, who just received the 1st letter, writing back, telling Stan not to take him or his lyrics so seriously, lest he end up like a guy he just saw on the news, and suddenly, in mid-letter, Em realizes that the guy he just saw was Stan.
Whether or not "Stan" was meant to be a portmanteau of "Stalker" and "Fan" has been debated -- Eminem says it wasn't meant that way, and the name was probably just chosen for being easy to rhyme -- it has become common slang for an intense fan of an entertainer.
Anthony Bozza of Rolling Stone, who wrote an early biography of Eminem, wrote:
Following the excitement and popularity of grunge and alternative rock in the mid-'90s, bland record company fodder rock bands took over the airwaves. But in 2000 there was a huge section of the population who just didn't see themselves in what they were being told to like.
It makes complete sense, then, that at the turn of the century, professional wrestling had a huge boom in business, thanks to Stone Cold Steve Austin; South Park was massive; as was aggressive and lewd nu-metal like Limp Bizkit and Korn. Eminem's rebellion, snark, and inappropriateness were all definitely in.
In 2002, he released his 3rd album, The Eminem Show. The single "Without Me," with its video showing him as Robin to Dr. Dre's Batman, featured him understanding the dichotomy between real life and stage persona: "Nobody wants Marshall no more! They want Shady!" That year also saw him star in the semi-autobiographical film 8 Mile, named for the road that separates the City of Detroit from its suburbs, and his Number 1 hit from that film, "Lose Yourself," now regarded as his signature song.
Eventually, he developed a serious drug problem, and recovered from it. He also reconciled with his mother and his daughter, became a promoter of his hometown of Detroit, and launched recorded diatribes against Donald Trump.
I've often said that nobody should be treated as a "legend" or an "icon" until they're at least 40. Now past 50, Eminem is unquestionably both, and he refuses to become an anachronism. His performance at the halftime show of Super Bowl LVI, in 2022 at SoFi Stadium outside Los Angeles, alongside Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, and Kendrick Lamar, is already regarded as one of the best halftime shows in Super Bowl history.
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February 23, 1999 was a Tuesday. Baseball and football were out of season. There were 8 games in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks beat their neighbors, but hardly their rivals, the New Jersey Nets, 82-74 at Madison Square Garden.
* The Miami Heat beat the Washington Wizards, 96-80 at the MCI Center (now the Capital One Arena) in Washington.
* The Detroit Pistons beat the Toronto Raptors, 106-80 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan.
* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Chicago Bulls, 90-88 at the United Center in Chicago.
* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Atlanta Hawks, 89-85 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.
* The Houston Rockets beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 98-86 at The Summit in Houston. It's now the Central Campus of televangelist Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church.
* The Golden State Warriors beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 94-89 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.
* And the Vancouver Grizzlies beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 93-83 at General Motors Place (now the Rogers Arena) in Vancouver.
And there were 3 games in the NHL:
* The Boston Bruins beat the Ottawa Senators, 5-2 at the FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) in Boston.
* The Dallas Stars beat the Nashville Predators, 4-3 at the Nashville Arena (now the Bridgestone Arena).
* And the Colorado Avalanche and the Vancouver Canucks played to a tie, 4-4 at the McNichols Arena in Denver.
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