Happy Birthday Eminem

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Happy Birthday to Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), better known by his stage name Eminem and by his alter ego Slim Shady. He is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter, and actor. In addition to his solo career, Eminem is a member of the group D12, as well as one half of the hip hop duo Bad Meets Evil, alongside Royce da 5'9". Eminem is the best-selling artist of the 2000s in the United States. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 82nd on its list of The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. The same magazine declared him The King of Hip Hop. Including his work with D12 and Bad Meets Evil, Eminem has achieved ten number-one albums on the Billboard 200. Eminem has sold more than 155 million albums and singles, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. As of June 2014, he is the second best selling male artist of the Nielsen Soundscan era, the sixth best overall selling artist in the United States, and the best-selling hip-hop artist having sold 45,160,000 albums and 31 million digital singles.

After his debut album Infinite (1996), Eminem rose to mainstream popularity in 1999 with his second album The Slim Shady LP. The Slim Shady LP was a commercial success and earned the rapper his first Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. His next two releases, The Marshall Mathers LP (2000) and The Eminem Show (2002), were worldwide successes, each earning US Diamond certification in sales. Both albums also won the Best Rap Album Grammy Award, making Eminem the first artist to win such an award for three consecutive LPs. This was followed by Encore in 2004, another critical and commercial successful album. Eminem then went on hiatus after touring in 2005. He released Relapse in 2009 and Recovery in 2010, which was named the best-selling album of 2010 worldwide, becoming the rapper's second album, after The Eminem Show, to become the internationally best-selling album of its year. Eminem won Grammy Awards for both Relapse and Recovery, giving him a total of 13 Grammys in his career. His eighth studio album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2, was released in November 2013.

Eminem has opened other ventures, including his own record label Shady Records with his manager Paul Rosenberg. He also has his own radio channel, Shade 45 on Sirius XM Radio. In November 2002, Eminem starred in the hip hop drama film 8 Mile. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the film's iconic song "Lose Yourself", becoming the first rap artist ever to win the award. 

Artwork by Ben Heine

Watch Eminem - "The Real Slim Shady"