language- external content
Early Life
Marshall Mathers (aka Eminem) was born on October 17th 1972 in St. Joseph Missouri. His father left when he was an infant and despite multiple attempts to contact him Marshall was unsuccessful. He was raised by his single mother Deborah Mathers. Deborah never had a job more than three months which led to a lot of moving throughout his childhood. They moved back and forth between Missouri and Detroit Michigan spending large amounts of time in housing projects. In an interview Eminem said the hardest part of his childhood was changing schools two to three times a year. All the moving meant he never had close friends and he was bullied and beat up a lot. He eventually dropped out of school at 17 years old after failing the 9th grade three times. Despite dropping out of school he was always good at English and loved reading comic books and studying the dictionary.
"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." –Eminem
The Art of Rap- How he does it
History of Rap
Rap Originated out of New York from the housing projects in the late 1970s. it started when individuals began rapping over the break dancing songs djs were creating. These individuals were called MCs (Mic Controllers) and they were known for their rhymes and freestyles. Several sources influenced rap, one of the biggest influences was a spoken word group from Harlem known as The Last Poets. They had been delivering political street poetry since the early 1970s. Another influence on rap was from public figures like Muhammad Ali and from Martin Luther king JR. also the musical style of rhythm and blues performers like Issac Hayes had a impact on rap. The first ever recorded rap song was “you’re my candy sweet” by the fatback band which was released in 1979 along with “rappers delight” by sugar hill gang. In the early 1980s rap recording were mostly positive in tone while exploring and exposing the gritty conditions of life in the ghettos. By the 1990s gangsta rap became and remained one of the most popular sub-genera’s of rap.