Eminem Released "The Slim Shady LP" On This Day In 1999
Crazy today in hip hop history stat.
The Slim Shady LP was the soundtrack to an entire generation.
People think The Slim Shady LP was Eminem's debut album and first the world heard of him.
Chances are the latter was correct, but the former is not.
Infinite was released 3 years earlier in 1996 and according to Eminem, "it sold 70 copies".
About 10 years ago 50 Cent posted a free download of it online which is still available -
After releasing The Slim Shady LP Eminem gave one of his first, and most memorable, interviews to Rolling Stone. In it he described the origin of the name "Slim Shady" (He came up with it while sitting on the toilet), and what motivated him to adopt the "pissed off, chip on the shoulder, fuck the world" attitude so prevalent on the album and which resonated with millions and millions of fans.
“A lot of it was because of the feedback I got. Motherfuckers was like, ‘You’re a white boy, what the fuck are you rapping for? Why don’t you go into rock ’n’ roll?’ All that type of shit started pissing me off.”
"Then we got evicted, because my friends and me were paying rent to the guy on the lease, and he screwed us over.” The night before he headed to the Rap Olympics, an annual nationwide MC battle in L.A., he came home to a locked door and an eviction notice. “I had to break in,” he says. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go. There was no heat, no water, no electricity. I slept on the floor, woke up, went to L.A. I was so pissed.”
It was at those Rap Olympics that Eminem was robbed of first place. He was devastated but luckily for him, somebody in his crew managed to get a copy of his Shady EP into the hands of Paul Rosenberg and a few Interscope staffers in attendance. From there it moved its way up to the desk of Jimmy Iovine and eventually Dr. Dre.
“In my entire career in the music industry,” Dre says, “I have never found anything from a demo tape or a CD. When Jimmy played this, I said, ‘Find him. Now.'”
In the first day the two spent in studio at Dr. Dre's house together recording, they produced the infamous "My Name Is".
The song, and music video, took MTV by storm. The blonde-haired, punk kid with a rubbish mouth from Detroit was all over everybody's tv screens on an hourly basis. For weeks. Then months straight.
The two went on to pop ecstasy and write the remaining tracks of the album.
MTV News- "The point where I actually knew that I made it was the first day I went to Dre's house and we recorded three songs in less than six hours. It was like every beat that he made, I had a rhyme to either go with it, or sat down and wrote one right there and went in the studio and just spit as best as I could. I was really out to impress him, to show him what I could do. And when I saw Dre nodding his head and laughing at some of the things that I was saying, I was like, 'I'm in. I made it.' That's finally when I realized, 'This is my big break.'"
One of those songs they pumped out, that never saw the light of day was called "Ghost Stories"
A few others, Eminem already had done in his head or on his EP.
Most notable of course was "97 Bonnie & Clyde"
LA Times-While working as a cook at Gilbert's Lodge in St. Clair Shores, a suburb of Detroit, Eminem was often seen with headphones on as he manned the grill at the Motown staple which first opened its doors in 1963.
"We used to send back orders to him and he'd rap them," said waitress, Sue DuPont, of Eminem's $5.50-an-hour profession.
While the world would later come to understand that Eminem used his music as therapy, those around him at work noticed how his mood would shift when he dealt with his girlfriend, Kim , - with whom he had a child with in 1995 - as well as his strained interactions with his mother.
"His mother would call him at work so often the waitresses automatically hung up. After each call, the waitresses said, Mathers' mood would darken and he'd pull on his headphones. The anger he buried eventually found its way into rage-filled lyrics he recorded and brought in for the Gilbert's crew to hear."
In one song, he fantasized about killing Kim - which would later become the basis for two of his most notable songs - "'97 Bonnie & Clyde" and "Kim."
"I told him it was morbid killing your baby's mother," recalled Lynn Hunt, a waitress at Gilbert's. "He told me, 'yeah, but it will get me somewhere someday.'"
Eminem ultimately got fired from his cooking job at Gilbert's Lodge.
Eminem wrote “Just the 2 of Us,” on the Shady EP, to tell the tale of a father killing his baby’s mother and cleaning up the mess with the help of his daughter. Dre and Iovine knew the song would be extremely controversial and didn't hesitate to put it on the album, reworking it into "97 Bonnie and Clyde"
Why they went with "Just the 2 of Us/97 Bonnie & Clyde" over "Kim", which was also a song Eminem had written and previously recorded, no one knows. But it did of course come on the follow-up album The Marshall Mathers LP as a prequel.
(Fun fact - Marilyn Manson was actually slated to sing on "97 Bonnie and Clyde" but according to Spin Magazine he turned Eminem down because the song was "too misogynistic".
"He asked me to sing on his first record, and I would have, except that the song he asked me to sing was – and this might sound strange – too misogynistic. It was the one about killing his girlfriend and putting her in a trunk. It was on a record I could listen to, but it was too over-the-top for me to associate with. It didn’t represent where I was at.")
Another highlight of the album was "I Just Don't Give A Fuck". Just an incredible song over an incredible Dr. Dre beat.
Eminem also used the platform to name-check a childhood bully.
One of the best examples of Eminem's mixing of humor with autobiographical elements is "Brain Damage" in which he recalls being beaten unconscious by a bully who he name checks as De'Angelo Bailey. Not only was it a true event, but he actually used his tormentor's real name.
"Motherfucker used to beat the shit out of me," Eminem recalled. "I was in fourth grade and he was in sixth. Everything in the song is true: One day he came in the bathroom, I was pissing, and he beat the shit out of me. Pissed all over myself."
Another standout song off the album was the iconic track that put Eminem immediately in the discussion for best rap storytellers- "Guilty Conscience"
Rap of the 1990s featured the voices of some of the toughest street-hardened individuals music had heard up until that point. DMX, Jay-Z, Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., Wu-Tang.
Even the lives of the up-and-coming southern rap scene seemed drastically different from the lives of the average white suburban rap lover.
Then, in 1999, enter Eminem.
Eminem was rapping about white trash, laundry mats, and trailer parks. The environment he was describing was foreign and familiar at the same time. And more than anything, completely different from the typical rap landscape.
On The Slim Shady LP, Eminem managed to carefully brandish both sides of the sword. He nonchalantly blended frighteningly realistic detail and horror with cartoonish violence. Interwoven with heavy drug culture and sprinkled with a bit of battle rap.
This vividness of violence created a firestorm when the album came out.
You had the usual politicians seeking to ban it, radio stations refusing to play it, parents grounding their kids for finding it amongst their collection, and on and on. He was vilified and idolized.
People today are numb, or just more used to, Eminem's antics, lyrics, and the controversy in general. But back in February of 1999 when this album hit, seemingly out of nowhere, the world was shook.
But as the time-old tale goes, bad publicity is good publicity. The controversy only made Eminem and The Slim Shady LP a bigger success.
Today it's sold over 10 and a half million copies and is still regarded as one of the most groundbreaking albums in rap, and music history.