The Secrets Behind Eminem's Iconic "Marshall Mathers LP"

The Marshall Mathers LP is one of the most revered rap albums of all time, but here are some things you didn't know about it...

1. It sold 1.76 million copies in America in its first week.

It was the fastest-selling studio album by a solo artist in American music history up to that point.

2. After his first album BOMBED, he created a second EP based on his alter ego, Slim Shady.

This caught the attention of Dr. Dre, who NEEDED to work with him. Dre thought the rapper on the EP was black. He said: "In my entire career in the music industry, I have never found anything from a demo tape or a CD. When Jimmy played this, I said, 'Find him. Now.'"

Whoa...

3. Em said that over a period of two months he had a "creative binge" and would record songs in 20-hour recording sessions.

Because he felt isolated by the seclusion of the studio, he called himself a "studio rat."

4. Em said that the BEST parts of the album evolved from "f—king around" in the studio.

In fact, "Criminal" was based on a piano riff one of his producers had ripped from a recording session in the studio next door.

I wish I'd come up with stuff like that when I was screwing around.

5. He wrote the song "Kim" when he and his wife were separated so it was written in anger.

He felt stupid asking her how she felt about it when they reconciled. "I asked her to tell me what she thought of it. I remember my dumb ass saying, 'I know this is a fucked-up song, but it shows how much I care about you. To even think about you this much. To even put you on a song like this.'"

6. "Kill You" came from Em hearing the track playing while he was talking to Dr. Dre on the phone and Em WANTING to put it in a song.

After the wrote the lyrics, he ran to the studio and recorded it with Dre.

7. There's a clean version of the album.

Author Raiford Guins said it sounded like "a cross between a cell phone chat with terrible reception...and a noted hip-hop lyricist suffering from an incurable case of hiccups." He said so in his book, Edited Clean Version: Technology and the Culture of Control.

8. "The Real Slim Shady" only came to be because the record label thought that the album didn't have a single that would be amazing.

He has mad at the fact that they were expecting a repeat. So he begrudgingly wrote "The Way I Am" as a way to say he couldn't come up with another smash hit. But then he felt the urge to write another and then gave us the iconic song.

Yikes... Good thing he felt that creative urge.

9. The album could have been called Amsterdam because Em was inspired by the open drug use he saw there when he visited.

10. He was almost banned from entering Canada because of the lyrics in the album.

He was set to perform on October 26, 2000, but the Ontario Attorney General Jim Flaherty said to stop him at the border after he was disgusted by the lyrics in "Kill You." He didn't win after people argued it was free speech.

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