Eminem‘s debut biopic film 8 Mile was released on November 6, 2002. Starring Eminem himself and Written by Scott Silver and directed by Curtis Hanson, the movie told the story of Em’s life growing up in detroit. Eminem won the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 75th Academy Awards in 2003, for his single “Lose Yourself” from the soundtrack of 8 Mile.
Eminem didn’t attend the Oscar award ceremony when he won. Instead, he was home sleeping. “I was sleeping that night… I just felt like i had no chance of winning” Eminem told Southpawer Extra.
Before Marshall Bruce Mathers III was known as Eminem, he went by his first moniker M&M.
Eminem started rapping at the age of 14 years old with his high-school friend Mike Ruby; who was a producer and went by the name “Manix” and Emimen went by “M&M”, which was based off his initials and it later grew phonetically into “Eminem”.
Eminem recorded his 1999 smash hit “My Name Is” the first time he met face-to-face with Dr. Dre.
Dr. Dre revealed this during his HBO docuseries The Defiant Ones, Dr. Dre recalled Eminem coming into his Interscope office in a bright yellow jumpsuit, then Eminem says: “I’m looking at Dre like, ‘Dude I see you on TV all the time – you one of my biggest influences in life’.” Dr. Dre would then invite Eminem into his home studio and he played the beat for My Name Is and Eminem says the famous lines “My Name Is.” “That’s what happened, Our first day, in the first few minutes of us being together in the studio.” and the rest was history.
Eminem recorded parts of his 1999 sophomore album ‘The Slim Shady LP’ while on ecstasy.
Back in 1999, the same year ‘The Slim Shady LP’ released, Rolling Stone profiled Eminem and he admitted to recording parts of ‘The Slim Shady LP’ while on ecstasy. Eminem was really into drugs back in 1999.
From the April 29, 1999 issue of Rolling Stone: “A minute later there’s a knock on the window and one of Royce’s posse gives Em the first of the three hits of ecstasy he will consume over the course of the night. Down it goes in a swallow of ginger ale as the car zooms off toward Staten Island.’”
Eminem told Rolling Stone that two of the songs off The Slim Shady LP were made while he was on ecstasy. According to Eminem he would be in the studio with Dr. Dre for days, high on drugs and listening to the music they made after.
Eminem released The Slim Shady LP on February 23, 1999. The album sold 283,000 copies first week and peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 charts.
Eminem became the first artist and rapper to have 10 consecutive albums debut at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, when he released his 11th studio album, Music to Be Murdered By on January 17, 2020. Eminem’s debut debut album Infinite and The Slim Shady LP reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200. It was Eminem’s third album The Marshall Mathers LP that earned his his first No. 1 and started the count.
The Marshall Mathers LP – (May 21, 2000) sold 1.76 million copies first week
The Eminem Show – (May 26, 2002) sold 284,000 copies in first 3 days
Encore – (Nov 12, 2004) sold 1.5 million copies first week
Curtain Call: The Hits – (Dec 6, 2005) sold 441,000 copies first week
Relapse – (May 15, 2009) sold 608,000 copies first week
Recovery – (June 18, 2010) sold 741,000 copies first week
The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (Nov 5, 2013) – sold 792,000 copies first week
Revival – (Dec 15, 2017) sold 267,000 album-equivalent units first week
Kamikaze – (Aug 31, 2018) sold 434,000 album-equivalent units first week
Music to Be Murdered By – (Jan 17, 2020) sold 279,000 album-equivalent units first week
In 2000, Eminem lost a notebook at an airport full of lyrics and a picture of Britney Spears on the cover, he offered a reward to whoever could return it. He didn’t get it back.
When Eminem lost the notebook back in 2000, he wanted it back so badly that he set up a toll free number to call if you found it (1-888-311-4343) and an e-mail address (found@eminem.com). According to a 2000 statement from Eminem’s label, Interscope Records, the last time Eminem (who’s luggage tag read Marshall Mathers III) saw the notebook was on a Delta Air Lines flight from Cincinnati to New Orleans. The book is long gone by now, somewhere in the world.
Eminem revealed this during a 2009 interview with Jimmy Kimmel saying; “I lost a notebook one time… Years ago, I lost a Britney Spears notebook and it had lyrics , to the Marshall Mathers LP… It had like five or six songs on it and I lost it and I never got it back. All of my ideas were, some of them I remembered but some of them were gone.” People were putting notes but i never found it”
Jimmy Kimmel: “Really”
“Yea, I never got it back. I know people were putting Britney Spears notebooks with fake lyrics and stuff like that on the internet. I never found it.” Eminem says.
Jimmy Kimmel: “So, some of your songs got lost and just completely disappeared because of Britney spears… well, I guess we can’t really blame her for that.”
“Yea, we can.” Eminem jokes.
Watch from 7:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkDfGG5JepE
In a backstage video of The Up in Smoke Tour, you can see Eminem holding and talking about the Britney Spears book at 2:00.
Eminem‘s studio engineer was so high on marijuana, he accidentally recorded over the original take of the third verse of “Stan.”
While doing annotations on Genius lyric website, Eminem revealed the majority of the third verse (“Dear Mr. I’m-Too-Good-to-Call-or-Write-My-Fans”……) of Eminem’s “Stan” was accidentally deleted by his studio engineer, who was high on marijuana at the time. Eminem says the original was “WAY” better. Unfortunately, we’ll never get to hear it.
“When we recorded Stan I worked with a couple different engineers but this particular engineer I had never worked with before. While we were recording the third verse of Stan, he started rolling a joint and asked me if I minded if he smoked while we cut. What was I gonna do? Say no? He was already rolling it so I told him “no problem.” Everything was cool and I had gotten all the way to the last 3 lines and I screwed up so all he had to do was punch in my vocals at the end so I could re-do that line and the verse was finished. Back then we were recording on 2-inch tape, so once you recorded over something it’s gone forever. So I’m in the booth waiting and he backs the tape up all the way to the beginning of the verse and punches me in. I realize he’s in the wrong spot and I can’t hear any of my vocals so I start waving my arms and yelling in the mic to try to get his attention. He doesn’t notice so I run into the control room through a cloud of smoke and yell “Yo, I wanted to keep those vocals” he just looked at me and said “My bad man…you wanna hit this?”Eminem wrote.
The first half of the verse was GONE. I re-recorded it but you should have heard the original take that shit was WAY better…oh well!”
In a 2010 interview with Interview Magazine, Jay-Z revealed that in 2003, Eminem wore a bulletproof vest to the studio when he collaborated with Jay-Z on ‘Moment of Clarity’, which he produced on The Black Album.
“I never even told him this, but I remember that Eminem came into the studio when we made ‘Moment of Clarity,’ which he produced, on The Black Album. So here’s Eminem. It’s 2003, I think The Eminem Show had come out, and he was, like, the biggest rapper in the world —he sold, like, 20 million records worldwide or some ridiculous number. Jay-Z told Interview Magazine
“But when he came to the studio, I remember I hugged him and I could feel that he had on a bulletproof vest. I couldn’t imagine being that successful. I mean, he’s a guy who loves rap and wanted to be successful his whole career. Then he finally gets it, and there’s this dark cloud over him. There’s this big beef between 50 Cent and Ja Rule and between real people, too—so he has to worry about that. He has to be afraid to walk around New York freely. I was like, ‘Here it is. You’ve gotten everything you wanted, and now you’re a prisoner of your own fame.’ That’s sad to me that you have to walk around in a bulletproof vest after you’ve sold 20 million records. So, the point being, what I’m interested in is the thing under the thing. You can think you know where he was at when he said those raps, but I saw another level of it personally, and I found it sad.” Jay-Z added.
