Marshall began rapping at an early age of 4, rhyming words together and battling against schoolmates in the dining hall. This shone some light into his life, as living with a single mother, aged 19, in a rough area was very difficult. he found it hard to settle into schools as he was moving between Kansas City and Detroit throughout his childhood. he moved schools often due to bad behaviour preventing him from making friends and getting good grades.
He had become very serious about his rapping by the age of 14, however, it wasn't until the age of 17 that he decided to use his initials M&M as his rap name, he later re-spelt it as Eminem. Unfortunately, other rap artists rejected him due to his race, which flared his anger and shows through his songs to this day. At the end of his failed third attempt at 9th grade, he quit school to follow his rapping career appearing on radio shows and battling it out to gain publicity. He failed most, if not all, of the battle he entered. However, light began to shine at the end of the tunel for young Marshall. He released his first album, 'Infinite', which then lead to Eminem performing on small stages, even though the album only sold less than 1000 copies.
Eminem entered the 1997 Rap Olympics as the prize money, which was $1,500, was something he desperately needed as he now had a daughter to raise with long time girlfriend Kim Scott. he fought with everything he had throwing back every racial comment making it to second place. he blew his chance and lost the battle. however, what he didn't realise was that there were some producers from interscope along with Dr. Dre. Dr. Dre heard Eminem's album 'infinite' and was impressed. So he decided to track Eminem down, the hit it off straight away and, within the first six hours of working together, they recorded four songs together. Dre then asked eminem to go and work with him on his new album. The duo made a second album called the Marshall Mathers LP, winning 3 grammies and was the first rap album ever to be nominated "Album of the Year". 8 million copies of the album were sold in the US alone.
