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Eminem · S2 E7
The Slim Shady LP
Four million copies. A Grammy. America meets its most controversial new voice
February 23, 1999. The Slim Shady LP ships to record stores across America, and the man who made it has not had a bank account in three years.
Eminem ft. Lil Wayne, "No Love" (official music video, 2010). "Throw dirt on me and grow a wildflower." Eminem and Wayne trade verses about being counted out and coming back harder than anyone thought possible. The video's energy captures exactly what The Slim Shady LP was: a man who had every reason to disappear proving he was impossible to ignore.
No Love
Built on a sample of Haddaway's "What Is Love," the production flips a cheesy 90s dance hit into something aggressive and urgent. Eminem's verse is among his fastest and most technically dense, packing internal rhyme schemes that stack three and four syllables deep. Listen for the moment he shifts from controlled precision into a full sprint. That switch is the same energy that made The Slim Shady LP hit so hard.
“When I heard The Slim Shady LP for the first time, I knew it was going to be one of the most important records in rap. Not just because of the skill level, but because here was somebody making the genre bigger, pulling in people who had never listened to hip-hop.”
— Jimmy Iovine, Rolling Stone, 2000
TAP TO REVEAL: What nearly stopped The Slim Shady LP from being released?
From Nobody to Everywhere
The transformation is complete. In 1996, Marshall Mathers was an anonymous dishwasher with a box of unsold tapes. By the end of 1999, Eminem is the most talked-about musician in America, too famous to walk into a grocery store, with a Grammy and a growing list of enemies who want him silenced.
Still Don't Give a Fuck
The closing track of The Slim Shady LP. While "Just Don't Give a Fuck" opened the Slim Shady era, this is the sequel that slams the door shut on the album. Over a dark, rattling beat, Eminem sounds like a man who has already won and knows it. Press play and let the season end where the LP does.
Still Don't Give a Fuck, Eminem (1999)
Read the lyrics while you listen. The closing track of The Slim Shady LP. The sequel that slams the door shut on the album.
How many copies did The Slim Shady LP sell in its first week?
The Slim Shady LP made Eminem famous. What comes next will make him the most controversial man in America. The Marshall Mathers LP sells 1.76 million copies in a single week, Congress calls for hearings, and a song called "Stan" adds a word to the dictionary.
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