By the second track, Eminem and Slim Shady become the same person. Eminem resists and screams in the background while Slim Shady yells back and laughs at Eminem's horror. The cover depicts the opening intro as well as the first track, in which Slim Shady awakens Eminem and orders him to look in the mirror to see that he is 'nothing without him'. Dre subsequently began work on his major-label debut album The Slim Shady LP. When Jimmy played this, I said, 'Find him. Dre recalled, 'In my entire career in the music industry, I have never found anything from a demo tape or a CD. Iovine played the tape for record producer Dr. He placed second, and the staff at Interscope Records who attended the Rap Olympics sent a copy of the Slim Shady EP to company CEO Jimmy Iovine.

After being evicted from his home, Eminem traveled to Los Angeles to participate in the Rap Olympics, an annual nationwide rap battle competition. During this time, Eminem and his wife Kim Scott lived in a high-crime neighborhood with their newborn daughter Hailie, where their house was burglarized numerous times. Slim Shady served as Eminem's vent for his frustrations, and in 1997, he released the horrorcore extended play entitled Slim Shady EP simultaneously on cassette, vinyl, and CD.

The disappointment of Infinite inspired Eminem to create the alter ego Slim Shady: 'Boom, the name hit me, and right away I thought of all these words to rhyme with it'. Motherfuckers was like, 'You're a white boy, what the fuck are you rapping for? Why don't you go into rock & roll?' All that type of shit started pissing me off.' After the release of Infinite, Eminem's personal struggles and abuse of drugs and alcohol culminated in a suicide attempt: all these troubles became main themes of Slim Shady EP. A lot of it was because of the feedback I got. The disappointment from this experience and vexing situation greatly influenced his lyrical style: 'After that record, every rhyme I wrote got angrier and angrier. Infinite achieved little commercial success and was largely ignored by Detroit radio stations, such as WJLB (97.9 FM in Detroit), and in specific tracks Eminem raps explicitly about this problem, like in 'Just Don't Give a Fuck' 'If I Had' and 'Low Down, Dirty'. In 1996, his debut album Infinite, which was recorded at the Bassmint, a recording studio owned by the Bass Brothers, was released under their independent label Web Entertainment. According to Billboard, at this point in his life Eminem had 'realized his musical ambitions were the only way to escape his unhappy life'. Porter - was also noticeably higher than on prior album efforts. The production value of the music on the tracks - from previous collaborators DJ Head, The Bass Brothers, and Mr. Eminem also began utilizing story telling on this EP. His flow is also noticeably different from Infinite where critics claimed he sounded too much like Nas and AZ. Another departure was his exploration of more serious themes of dealing with poverty, his direct and self-deprecating response to criticism, and of marital and family difficulties. His lyrics are a marked departure from those found on Infinite, featuring constant references to drug use, sexual acts, mental instability, and over-the-top violence. Since the EP was released before he was signed to Interscope and Aftermath, original copies are now highly valued. Dre, who subsequently signed Eminem to his Aftermath Entertainment record label, and served as executive producer on his major-label debut album The Slim Shady LP (1999).Įminem first introduced his 'Slim Shady' persona on the EP. Unlike Infinite, Slim Shady EP helped Eminem gain the interest of CEO Jimmy Iovine (co-founder of Interscope Records) and West Coast hip-hop producer Dr. Slim Shady EP is the debut extended play by American rapper Eminem, released on Decemthrough the Detroit-based record label Web Entertainment.

Eminem slim shady ep mediafire