On May 23rd 2025 Eminem's magnum opus and greatest achievement celebrated its 25th Birthday. An album that not only had an impact on Hip Hop and what Hip Hop could be and sound like, but music as a whole.
Eminem reached his commercial peak two years after this album in 2002, where he simultaneously held number 1 spots for film (8 Mile), album (The Eminem Show), and song (Lose Yourself). As impressive the heights reached by Kendrick Lamar, and particularly Drake, have been, with us being this deep into the streaming era as we are, kids born in the late 90's and 2000's cannot really fathom the level of mania that Shady had in this moment. But these career heights would not have been reachable without the year 2000, where he released his middle finger to the world, in the form of a Hip Hop LP. If The Eminem Show was his Harlem globetrotter style slam dunk, The Marshall Mathers LP was the all-important spring-board.
After the cartoonish but brilliant debut album The Slim Shady LP, and the equally colourful and devilish chart hit My Name Is, genuine accusations of 1-hit wonder were levelled at Eminem, from inside and outside of Hip Hop. That's crazy to imagine, but think back to the year 1999, My Name Is was the only track from The Slim Shady LP to gain any real commercial success, and white rappers were a novelty. The Beastie Boys were respected for sure, but the likes of Vanilla Ice tarred an already questionable reputation white rappers had in the game. If you didn't appreciate the lyrical technique that Eminem was displaying on The Slim Shady LP, then it would be easy to see him as a circus act. But being the lyrical killer that he was, and his ear for hit-making and his own respect for the craft and culture, and backed by the experience of Dr Dre too, those accusations were never going to prove to be true.
In a way, The Marshall Mathers LP was a response album, to all those critiques and to dispel them one by one, each multi-syllabic bar at a time. Be it the conservatives who didn't appreciate the violence and the complete takeover of the youthful zeitgeist of 1999, the liberals who didn't appreciate his less-than PC language, or the short-sighted folks who believed him to be a flash in the pan. At different moments on the record, he takes aim at them all, starting with the opening track Kill You. Often cited as "Eminem at his best", this track sees Eminem riffing his tongue in cheek barbarism over hypnotic keys and a slow tempo, stop-start drums. He came through with the anthem for 'don't tell me what I can or can't say', and even if you did, well, you know how the hook goes.
Eminem's vivid and graphic narratives put him up there with the greatest storytellers in Hip Hop, be it Nas, Immortal Technique, and Slick Rick. He laces these tales and memories throughout his career, but his magnum-opus for this skill is the hit track Stan. Arguably the most influential title of a rap song ever, giving name to a culture of over-zealous, cult like fandom, Stan is a bone-chilling story of a superfan trying to get in touch with Eminem over several years via means of letters and tape recordings, before ultimately ending his own life in a car crash off a bridge with his pregnant wife tied up in the trunk. The dramatic irony of Eminem finally responding after the fatal accident is never lost and cuts deep to this day - Eminem's observations of his own fanbase, the appeal of his music, as well as the way his music can be misinterpreted truly displays his genius. Incredible lyrical dexterity, gritty content matter, dope instrumental, and an all-round absolute classic, it's one of the greatest Hip Hop tracks ever, period. My favourite lyric is from Stan's perspective in the 3rd verse - "I loved you Slim, we could of been together, think about it, you ruined it now, I hope you can't sleep and you dream about it, and when you dream I hope you can't sleep and you scream about it, I hope your conscious eats at you and you can't breathe without me".
Who Knew is an underrated deep cut in which he exposes the conservative hypocrisy in regard to the backlash to his lyrics. Not to concede any ground though, he does this by being as obnoxious, inciting, and aggressive as possible. In many ways, the point of Eminem is that; he's a product of this capitalist society whereby he's had to grow up in the gutter, in a rough neighbourhood where he's seen some shit that probably has scarred and made him the way he is. He's somehow managed to harness that in a way whereby he can make money from it - just like gangster rap before him. He's just expressing his story, yeah some of it may be embellished for artistic effect, but that's art right - like every movie ever based on true events. A lot of the people in the middle and upper classes of society who have being benefiting off the capitalist society that has made Marshall's life so much harder, are now the ones most upset with his lyrical content. This is Eminem who grew up in a broken home, struggling to make ends meet and moving out due to evictions, who grew up in segregated communities, struggling to fit in with both sides, who worked dead-end jobs with no pay, and was getting hired and fired the same day - so in my opinion it's not hard to see why Eminem was on his bullshit with this album and aiming back at these people who were upset with him for now making some bread from his story. And if the upper classes don't like it, well change society then, but they won't do that of course because of their current position in society. The album exposes all of this, but Who Knew drops some specifics, epitomised by the lyric, "so read up, about how I used to get beat up, peed on, be on free lunch and change school every 3 months".
Eminem was born into relative poverty, and his mum had a very tough life too. Eminem speaks a lot of his childhood now, and 25 years ago in 2000, he had only been rich for 1 year and spent the 25 up to that point struggling. But Eminem was already fed up with fame. That brings us to The Way I Am, the song which best epitomises the album and its energy. The rabid and furious delivery pounds over the signature beat as Eminem works himself up over the stresses of potentially flopping and not living up to the first albums success. As well as dealing with the intrusiveness of his newfound fame, his fame was fast and intense and as we know, at the time of writing these verses, it was only just the beginning. The rhyme schemes in the first verse are aimless and scatter gun, changing often, but then he drops one of the coldest schemes of the album when he says in the 3rd, “I'm so sick and tired of being admired that I wish that I would just die or get fired, and dropped from my label, let's stop with the fables, I'm not gonna be able to top a "My Name Is", and pigeon-holed into some poppy sensation, to cop me rotation at rock 'n' roll stations, and I just do not got the patience, to deal with these cocky Caucasians”.
Afterwards the transition into The Real Slim Shady is legendary, as we enter another
“Eminem at his best” moment (there’s a pattern with this album). It's the most
commercial song on the record, but neither lyrical technique nor lyrical content are toned down in any way.
But with Eminem, for every accessible anthem, you get a hardcore deep cut. For every Real Slim Shady, there’s a Remember Me. A criminally overlooked and under-appreciated record. Why, I’m not sure, perhaps maybe the feature names have less commercial notoriety. RBX does his thing, nothing mind blowing but nothing poor either. Sticky Fingaz, of Onyx fame, I’m not exaggerating when I say, drops one of the hardest feature verses of all time, certainly this side of the millennium. His flow is fucking evil - “Better come better than better to be a competitor, this vet is ahead of the shit, it's all redder, you deader and deader, a medic instead of the cheddars and credda, settle vendetta with metal beretta from ghetto to ghetto, evidence nope, never leave a shred of, I got the soul of every rapper in me, love me or hate me”.
And them Eminem casually comes in and drops arguably his sickest flow on an album of sick flows - “Six sick dreams of picnic scenes, two kids, sixteen, with M-16s and ten clips each, and them shits reach through six kids each, and Slim gets blamed in Bill Clint's speech to fix
these streets?” All over one of the dirtiest instrumentals known to man, that bassline god-damn.
This also started a long tradition of Em going at presidents, and more broadly politicians, moving on to George W Bush during 2004 and then Donald Trump from 2017-present.
Eminems flow on The Marshall Mathers LP is measured, diverse, engaging and crisp. Mix that with the unique subject matter, ability for creating imagery with ease, punchlines, subtle and clever wordplay, multi syllable rhyme schemes, and an ear for catchy choruses, and doing all the above to an extremely impressive level, for me then, the rapping on this album is at a quality level seldom ever seen in Hip Hop. And the next two songs do all of this in my opinion and are just two examples as to why Em is in the GOAT conversation. They are, I’m Back and Marshall Mathers.
I’m Back containing a vintage Dr Dre beat, and a vintage Eminem performance. Containing plenty of quotables and the most infamous Em lyric of all time. Censored even on the uncensored version, Eminem drops a line referencing the Columbine massacre of 1999, Eminem raps (with the redacted in brackets) - "I take 7 {kids} from {Columbine} stand 'em all in a line, add an AK-47, a revolver, a .9, a MAC-11 and it oughta solve the problem of mine, and that's a whole school of bullies shot up all at one time". It's cold-hearted, it's crazy, it flies in the face of the commentary on the massacre at the time, it's controversial to say the least, and I think he's essentially mocking the people who blame him for youth violence, saying, 'oh you think I'm the reason for massacres' well I'm going to spit a lyric that actually is inciteful'. In a way he parodies the idea of what people think he is.
Marshall Mathers doesn't reach the controversial peaks as its predecessor, with the disses and controversy being a lot lower-stake, taking out musical contemporaries of the early 2000's like Backstreet Boys, Ricky Martin, Nsync, and New Kids on the Block, all of whom Eminem despised being banded in with as "pop". He also disses Insane Clown Posse (ICP) here who he had more of an overt and historical beef with, gatekeeping Detroit which the Michigan suburbanites claimed they were from, whilst also dissing them with some very well put together rhyme schemes and really punching down on two inferior rappers. This song is littered with incredible schemes that have rhyme placements constantly taking you by surprise as Eminem moves around different pockets of the beat. The beat is a grungey rock-rap crossover, with a Nirvana type riff, and a sick guitar solo in the outro and Eminem singing his iconic chorus - "I'm just Marshall Mathers, I'm just a regular guy I don't know why all the fuss about me, nobody ever gave a fuck before all they did was doubt me, now everybody wanna run they mouth and try to take shots at me". This is quintessential Eminem track that his fans simply adore.
This is where the album reaches its lull. Only joking the next 3 songs are sick as well. Drug Ballad is the spiritual sequel to Cum on Everybody from the previous album, both have a pounding but simple drumbeat, and a nice funky bassline, but instead of being his "dance song", this time round he's spitting his "drug song". A simple structure of 3 medium length verses and a catchy hook in between, Eminem is on his partying vibe, but in true Eminem fashion, in an over-the-top, way beyond fun, and hilariously debauched way. Another fan favourite and showed that he still had that cartoonish devil on his shoulder that dictated much of the first album. There are a lot of epic lines but the best on this drug-fuelled deep cut has got to be - "but when it's all said and done I'll be 40 before I know it, with a 40 on a porch telling stories, with a bottle of Jack, 2 grandkids on my lap, babysitting for Hailie, while Hailie's out getting smashed".
Eminem is utterly unhinged throughout much of this album, it must be said. Done mostly through the prism of his Slim Shady alter ego, Eminem uses this character to create drama and chaos that you just wouldn't be able to have without that character. Whenever he needs to crank up the batshit-ness you can tell it's Slim Shady that he leans on to do this. Whether its horror-core lyrics, or a delivery verging on insanity, it's the flavour that ultimately got him signed and took him to the dizzying heights he achieved. The hook on Amityville is a good example of where he will put himself into his songs so much and essentially give an incredible and believable performance, of a nutter.
If Eminem toes the line between acting and genuine ill mental health on the previous tracks, without trying to stigmatize insanity, on the track Kim, Eminem blurs that differentiation like never before. Working as a prequel to the track 97 Bonnie & Clyde from the prior album, a song in which Eminem, accompanied by his daughter, disposes of his dead wife's body in a lake, this song acts as the events that lead to that having to happen. Essentially, the events of how his wife, Kim, was murdered, by him, Marshall. There's no denying it, Kim by Eminem is an uncomfortable listen. Consequently, the track has the least replay-ability of the album. Back-and-forth conversational tracks can often suffer from that, think We Cry Together by Kendrick Lamar. The catchy and ballad-like hook on Kim gives the track more replay-ability than We Cry Together though. From the lullaby introduction, to Eminem doing Kim's dialogue in a terrified squeaky distraught voice, to the screaming of "bleed" at the end of the song as Kim is choking to death on her own blood, the song is unhinged. Eminem's completely out of his mind on this track, the way he portrays himself as an insecure, jealous, completely irrational, violent psychopath is what makes the song so captivating.
Bitch Please II and Under the Influence are two quality posse cuts. The former being with the guys who put him on and introduced him to the world, Dr Dre, but also featuring Xzibit, Snoop Dogg, and Nate Dogg. The Dr Dre production and the featured artists mean the track does feel like it could have been on 2001. It's a sick track and also started the tradition of Eminem and Xzibit never missing on their collabs. Eminem steals the show with his performance, giving it that MMLP flavour. Under the Influence is the opposite, Eminem is doing the introductions, showing the world D12 with all 6 of them dropping quintessential verses. Proof's verse being particularly potent with his extended rhyme scheme and cold punchlines.
If there's a track that has aged the worst, it's the closer, Criminal. What makes Eminem good in terms of his brutal bars, cold hook, and his clever rhyme schemes is all on show, full throttle. However, the homophobic slurs and that last lyric of the song have dated the track, to the point where we will never hear this song in public ever again, I imagine.
To say the The Marshall Mathers LP was a commercial success would be understatement of the millennium. The record has sold over 35 million copies worldwide, achieving diamond status, and in its first week sold 1.78m copies. Numbers that are just unheard of nowadays, even if there was a comparable metric for streams. For its time it was impressive, especially for a Hip Hop artist. So no, Eminem quickly shook off the "one-hit wonder" allegations, dropped a diamond middle finger to his critics, wrote some seminal verses, and his superstardom continued. Not only can he put a chain around this album and wear it as a neck medallion, but it's also officially the 3rd highest selling rap record of all time, behind The Eminem Show (2002) in second place, and Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003) in first. I believe the OutKast record would count as two sales with it being a double album - still a classic though so you can't argue too much.
The Marshall Mathers LP belongs in the conversations of Illmatic, Ready to Die, and The Infamous, in it being an all-timer - a bible of rap that can be studied by future generations. It's impact on pop culture, but also its impact on a generation of MCs coming in and pushing their pen further to craft crazy flows and complex rhymes, is there to be seen and felt. An absolute classic that will live on forever, and in 25 years from now, all that is amazing on The Marshall Mathers LP still won't be lost on me.
Star Track - I'm Back
10/10
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