The True Rap God

Hardship at young

Marshall Bruce Mathers III had a turbulent childhood, marked by poverty and allegations of abuse. He was born on October 17, 1972, in Detroit At age 14 he began rapping in clubs in Detroit, Michigan, and, when unexcused absences kept him in the ninth grade for the third year, he quit school, determined to make it in hip-hop music. He worked odd jobs until finally making it as a rapper upon the release of The Slim Shady LP in early 1999. When his mother left to play bingo, he would blast the stereo and write songs. At age 14, Eminem began rapping with high-school friend Mike Ruby; they adopted the names "Manix" and "M&M", the latter of which stood for his initials and evolved into "Eminem".

Eminem never had a relationship with his father, but he did talk about him in his music. In his song "My Name Is" he said, "And by the way when you see my dad? Tell him that I slit his throat, in this dream I had." Eminem's Father married the rapper's mother, Debbie, when he was 22 and she was just 15. Eminem was born in Missouri two years later, but his father left when he was six months old and moved to California. Marshall Mathers Jr, Eminem's dad abandoned the family and rebuffed all of his son's many attempts to contact him during his childhood.

As a result, Eminem was raised by his mother, Deborah Mathers. Eminem has been scathingly critical of the way his mother raised him. Eminem's mother was a drug addict, who neglected him throughout his childhood. Deborah has vehemently denied all such accusations, and in 1999 she filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit against her son. They settled the case for $25,000. It was less of physical abuse and more of the fact that he resented her for making him go through all the pain of his childhood. In his song, Cleanin' Out My Closet, the rapper blamed his mother for being selfish and for not being there for him.

"I would change schools two, three times a year," Eminem later recalled. "That was probably the roughest part about it all." 

"I found that no matter how bad I was at school, like, and no matter how low my grades might have been at some times, I always was good at English ... I just felt like I wanna be able to have all of these words at my disposal, in my vocabulary at all times whenever I need to pull 'em out. You know, somewhere, they'll be stored, like, locked away.