Eminem

Recorded from 1999 to 2000,[44] The Marshall Mathers LP was released in May 2000. It sold 1.76 million copies in its first week, breaking US records held by Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle for fastest-selling hip hop album and Britney Spears' ...Baby One More Time for fastest-selling solo album.[45][46] The first single from the album, "The Real Slim Shady", was a success despite controversies about Eminem's insults and dubious claims about celebrities (for example, that Christina Aguilera had performed oral sex on Carson Daly and Fred Durst).[47] In his second single, "The Way I Am", he reveals the pressure from his record company to top "My Name Is". Although Eminem parodied shock rocker Marilyn Manson in the music video for "My Name Is", they are reportedly on good terms; Manson is mentioned in "The Way I Am", appeared in its music video and has performed a live remix of the song with Eminem.[48] In the third single, "Stan" (which samples Dido's "Thank You"), Eminem tries to deal with his new fame, assuming the persona of a deranged fan who kills himself and his pregnant girlfriend (mirroring "'97 Bonnie & Clyde" from The Slim Shady LP).[26] Q called "Stan" the third-greatest rap song of all time,[49] and it was ranked tenth in a Top40-Charts.com survey.[50] The song has since been ranked 296th on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list.[51] In July 2000, Eminem was the first white artist to appear on the cover of The Source.[35] The Marshall Mathers LP was certified Diamond by the RIAA in March 2011 and sold 21 million copies worldwide.[52]

Eminem performed with Elton John at the 43rd Grammy Awards ceremony in 2001,[53] with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD, an organization which considered Eminem's lyrics homophobic) condemning John's decision to perform with Eminem.[54] Entertainment Weekly placed the appearance on its end-of-decade "best-of" list: "It was the hug heard 'round the world. Eminem, under fire for homophobic lyrics, shared the stage with a gay icon for a performance of "Stan" that would have been memorable in any context."[55] On February 21, the day of the awards ceremony, GLAAD held a protest outside the Staples Center (the ceremony's venue).[56] In 2001 Eminem appeared in the Up in Smoke Tour with rappers Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Xzibit and Ice Cube[57] and the Family Values Tour with Limp Bizkit,[58] headlining the Anger Management Tour with Papa Roach, Ludacris and Xzibit.

The Eminem Show was released in May 2002. It was another success, reaching number one on the charts and selling over 1.332 million copies during its first full week.[39] The album's single, "Without Me", denigrates boy bands, Limp Bizkit, Dick and Lynne Cheney, Moby and others. The Eminem Show, certified Diamond by the RIAA, examines the effects of Eminem's rise to fame, his relationship with his wife and daughter and his status in the hip hop community, addressing an assault charge brought by a bouncer he saw kissing his wife in 2000. Although several tracks are clearly angry, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic found The Eminem Show less inflammatory than The Marshall Mathers LP.[59] L. Brent Bozell III, who had criticized The Marshall Mathers LP for misogynistic lyrics, noted The Eminem Show's extensive use of obscenity and called Eminem "Eminef" for the prevalence of the word "motherfucker" on the album.[60] The Eminem Show sold 27 million copies worldwide[52] and was the best-selling album of 2002.

2003–2007: Encore and musical hiatus

In 2003, Eminem, a lifelong fan of Tupac,[61] provided production work for three tracks on the Tupac Resurrection soundtrack.[62] He would follow this up the next year by producing 12 of the 16 tracks on Tupac's Loyal to the Game album.[62] On December 8, 2003, the United States Secret Service said that it was "looking into" allegations that Eminem had threatened the President of the United States.[63] The cause for concern was the lyrics of "We As Americans" ("Fuck money / I don't rap for dead presidents / I'd rather see the president dead / It's never been said, but I set precedents"), which was later released on a bonus CD with the deluxe edition of Encore.[64]

Encore, released in 2004, was another success. Its sales were partially driven by the first single, "Just Lose It," which contained slurs directed toward Michael Jackson. On October 12, 2004, a week after the release of "Just Lose It," Jackson phoned Steve Harvey's radio show to report his displeasure with its video (which parodies Jackson's child molestation trial, plastic surgery and the 1984 incident when Jackson's hair caught fire during the filming of a commercial). In the song, Eminem says, "That's not a stab at Michael / That's just a metaphor / I'm just psycho." Many of Jackson's friends and supporters spoke out against the video, including Stevie Wonder, who described it as "kicking a man while he's down" and "bullshit,"[65] and Steve Harvey (who said, "Eminem has lost his ghetto pass. We want the pass back").[65] The video also parodied Pee-wee Herman, MC Hammer and Madonna during her Blond Ambition period.[66] "Weird Al" Yankovic, who parodied the Eminem song "Lose Yourself" on "Couch Potato" for his 2003 album Poodle Hat, told the Chicago Sun-Times about Jackson's protest: "Last year, Eminem forced me to halt production on the video for my 'Lose Yourself' parody because he somehow thought that it would be harmful to his image or career. So the irony of this situation with Michael is not lost on me."[67] Although Black Entertainment Television stopped playing the video, MTV announced that it would continue to air it. The Source, through CEO Raymond "Benzino" Scott, called for the video to be pulled, the song removed from the album and Eminem to apologize publicly to Jackson.[68] In 2007, Jackson and Sony bought Famous Music from Viacom, giving him the rights to songs by Eminem, Shakira, Beck and others.[69]

Despite its lead single's humorous theme, Encore explored serious subject matter with the anti-war song "Mosh," which criticized President George W. Bush as "This weapon of mass destruction that we call our president," with lyrics including "Fuck Bush."[70] On October 25, 2004, a week before the 2004 US Presidential election, Eminem released the video for "Mosh" on the Internet.[71] In it, Eminem gathers an army (including rapper Lloyd Banks) of Bush-administration victims and leads them to the White House. When they break in, it is learned that they are there to register to vote; the video ends with "VOTE Tuesday November 2." After Bush's reelection, the video's ending was changed to Eminem and the protesters invading the White House during a speech by the president.[72] Also in 2004 Eminem launched a satellite music channel, Shade 45, on Sirius radio,[73] which was described by his manager as "essentially a destination to get and hear things that other people aren't playing."[74]

Eminem began his first US concert tour in three years in the summer of 2005 with the Anger Management 3 Tour, featuring 50 Cent, G-Unit, Lil Jon, D12, Obie Trice and The Alchemist, but in August he canceled the European leg of the tour, later announcing that he had entered drug rehabilitation for treatment of a "dependency on sleep medication."[75] Meanwhile, industry insiders speculated that Eminem was considering retirement, while rumors circulated that a double album titled The Funeral would be released.[76] In July, the Detroit Free Press reported a possible final bow for Eminem as a solo performer, quoting members of his inner circle as saying that he would embrace the roles of producer and label executive.[citation needed] A greatest hits album, Curtain Call: The Hits, was released on December 6, 2005 by Aftermath Entertainment,[77] and sold nearly 441,000 copies in the US in its first week, marking Eminem's fourth consecutive number-one album on the Billboard Hot 200,[78] and was certified double platinum by the RIAA.[79] However, Eminem suggested that month on WKQI's "Mojo in the Morning" show that he would be taking a break as an artist: "I'm at a point in my life right now where I feel like I don't know where my career is going ... This is the reason that we called it 'Curtain Call' because this could be the final thing. We don't know."[80] Eminem was ranked 58th in Bernard Goldberg's 2005 book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America.[81] Goldberg cited a 2001 column by Bob Herbert of The New York Times, in which Herbert wrote, "In Eminem's world, all women are whores and he is eager to rape and murder them,"[82] and cited the song "No One's Iller" from the Slim Shady EP as an example of Eminem's misogyny.[83]

In April 2006, Proof, who was Eminem's childhood friend, was murdered.[85] Eight months later, Eminem released a compilation album titled Eminem Presents: The Re-Up that featured Proof and other Shady Records artists.

2007–2009: Comeback, Relapse and Relapse: Refill

In September 2007, Eminem called New York radio station WQHT during an interview with 50 Cent, saying that he was "in limbo" and "debating" about when (or if) he would release another album: "I'm always working – I'm always in the studio. It feels good right now, the energy of the label. For a while, I didn't want to go back to the studio ... I went through some personal things. I'm coming out of those personal things [and] it feels good."[86]

Eminem appeared on his Shade 45 Sirius channel in September 2008, saying: "Right now I'm kinda just concentrating on my own stuff, for right now and just banging out tracks and producing a lot of stuff. You know, the more I keep producing the better it seems like I get 'cause I just start knowing stuff."[87] Interscope confirmed that a new album[88] would be released in spring 2009.[89] In December 2008, Eminem provided more details about the album, entitled Relapse: "Me and Dre are back in the lab like the old days, man. Dre will end up producing the majority of the tracks on 'Relapse'. We are up to our old mischievous ways ... let's just leave it at that."[90]

According to a March 5, 2009 press release, Eminem would release two new albums that year. Relapse, the first, was released on May 19; its first single and music video, "We Made You", had been released on April 7.[91] Although Relapse did not sell as well as Eminem's previous albums and received mixed reviews, it was a commercial success and re-established his presence in the hip hop world. It sold more than five million copies worldwide.[92] During the 2009 MTV Movie Awards, Sacha Baron Cohen descended on the audience in an angel costume. He landed buttocks-first on Eminem, who stormed out of the ceremony; three days later, Eminem said that the stunt had been staged.[93] On October 30 he headlined at the Voodoo Experience in New Orleans, his first full performance of the year.[94] Eminem's act included several songs from Relapse, many of his older hits and an appearance by D12. On November 19, he announced on his website that Relapse: Refill would be released on December 21. The album was a re-release of Relapse with seven bonus tracks, including "Forever" and "Taking My Ball". Eminem described the CD:

I want to deliver more material for the fans this year like I originally planned ... Hopefully, these tracks on The Refill will tide the fans over until we put out Relapse 2 next year ... I got back in with Dre and then a few more producers, including Just Blaze, and went in a completely different direction which made me start from scratch. The new tracks started to sound very different than the tracks I originally intended to be on Relapse 2, but I still want the other stuff to be heard.[95]

2009–2012: Recovery and Bad Meets Evil reunion

On April 14, 2010, Eminem tweeted: "There is no Relapse 2". Although his followers thought he was not releasing an album, he had changed its title to Recovery and confirmed this by tweeting "RECOVERY" with a link to his website. He said:

I had originally planned for Relapse 2 to come out last year. But as I kept recording and working with new producers, the idea of a sequel to Relapse started to make less and less sense to me, and I wanted to make a completely new album. The music on Recovery came out very different from Relapse, and I think it deserves its own title.[96]

Recorded from 2009 to 2010, Recovery was released on June 18.[96] In the US, Recovery sold 741,000 copies during its first week, topping the Billboard 200 chart.[97][98] Eminem's sixth consecutive US number-one album also topped the charts in several other countries. Recovery remained atop the Billboard 200 chart for five consecutive weeks of a seven-week total.[99]