On May 23, 2000 hip-hop rap artist Eminem released his Marshall Mathers album. Within a week over 1.7 million copies were sold making it the most successful debut of a hip-hop rap album ever. Not only was it successful at the cash registers but music critics gave the new work very positive reviews. Newsweek wrote that Eminem was "arguably the most compelling figure in all of pop music." "The new album from Eminem is absolutely outrageous. And I mean that in the best possible sense," wrote Neil McCormick, music critic for the Daily Telegraph in London. There have been a couple of dissenters. Eric Boehlert in a piece posted at the salon.com website described Eminem as the "John Rocker of hip-pop." Someone identified as "Patriot" wrote to an internet message board that he hoped people "will realize that Eminem is sending out bad messages and that his music is a bad influence." The United States Senate and several other keepers of morality weighed in with harsh criticism of the rapper. But by and large Eminem's appearance on the culture's radar screens has to be seen as a success story for the young artist.

And why begrudge success to a young man who apparently lived a difficult, poor and unhappy childhood?

Eminem was born Marshall Bruce Mathers III on October 17, 1974 in Kansas City, Missouri. (1974 was the same year Gil Scott Heron released his outstanding proto-rap song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.") His mother Debbie was 16 years old and apparently the young Marshall never really lived with or knew his father. Studies have shown that children who grow up not knowing their father have a more difficult time becoming successful adults. When he was 10 Mathers moved with his mother Debbie to the Detroit, Michigan area. There he attended Lincoln Junior High School and Osbourne High School but dropped out of the formal educational system when he was in the ninth grade. Just before he dropped out of school he met a girl Kimberly Scott. He was 15, she was two years younger. They became a couple.

Mathers' childhood was problematic. He has a younger brother. He has described himself and his family as poor white trash living in a mostly black neighborhood on the east side of Detroit. Rich people don't understand this shit but when you are poor the one thing you want more than anything is money. Money makes the poor man happy. Happiness breeds success.

Cause all I do is yearn a life without a concern
And dream of having a turn to earn money to burn
Mapping out my strategies to get rich huh
My desire is like a scratch that needs to get itched huh


"Never 2 Far" (Infinite)
Money may be the root of all evil but in America it's also the route to success. You don't need to go to school to understand that. If you are young, poor and insecure it also helps to have some talent or the bitterness will do you in. Marshall Mathers found his talent while holding a microphone spitting out hip-hop rap rhymes describing his hard times. He submerged himself in the robust Detroit rap underground and earned distinction as a man with a way with words.
Hip-hop originated in the black neighborhoods of the South Bronx in the 1970s. It served as a more positive and creative alternative to the rampant gang wars that erupted so violently in the depressed urban communities. Hip hop innovators like Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa found a way to channel hostility from the self-destructive thrust of the knife and gun fights to battles performed in front of microphones where one's poetic and musical wit became valued and respected. Hip-hop was an avenue of success for individuals who otherwise might have been killed on the streets fighting in gangs.

Mathers drank in the essentially black Afro-centric music emanating from the Bronx in much the same way Elvis Presley drank in the gospel and blues styles of the 1950s. Some see this as exploitation but it is really more appropriation. Like Presley before him, Mathers uses music as a surv