Eminem First Album Better -

Broke, humiliated, and getting booed at open mics, Marshall snapped. That rejection directly birthed The Slim Shady LP . He stopped being nice. He created Slim — the psychotic, hilarious, venomous alter ego who didn’t care if you hated him. As he later rapped in “Rock Bottom” (written during this period): “I feel like I’m walkin’ a tight rope without a circus net / I’m popping Percocet… ‘cause my pride’s in the gutter.”

Before the world knew him as Eminem, before Dr. Dre, before “My Name Is,” a hungry, angry 24-year-old Marshall Mathers released an album called in 1996. And it pretty much failed — spectacularly. eminem first album

Marshall had just lost his job as a cook at Gilbert’s Lodge, his girlfriend was pregnant with Hailie, and he was living in a tiny, cockroach-infested apartment on Detroit’s east side. He and his friend/producer, the Bass Brothers, scraped together about $1,500 to press maybe 500–1,000 cassettes and records. Broke, humiliated, and getting booed at open mics,

But without Infinite ’s silence, there’d be no Slim Shady ’s explosion. It’s the forgotten first step — not his debut, but his . He created Slim — the psychotic, hilarious, venomous

One original Infinite cassette — with the hand-drawn label — sold on eBay for over $1,000 years later. Eminem himself once said, “If you find a copy, burn it. I hate that album.”