The Slim Shady LP is released

Why it matters

The Slim Shady LP came out February 23, 1999, on Aftermath/Interscope. It is Eminem's major-label debut, after a self-released indie album (Infinite, 1996) that had basically gone nowhere. The album was produced largely by Dr. Dre (who had signed Em to Aftermath the year before, after hearing the Slim Shady EP). The album sold four million copies in the United States in its first year. What the album does is introduce the Slim Shady persona, which is the cartoonish-violent-shock-value version of Eminem that the next decade of his commercial work would alternate against the more autobiographical Marshall Mathers persona. "My Name Is," the lead single, was on MTV every other hour for most of 1999. "Guilty Conscience" with Dre. "'97 Bonnie & Clyde." "Brain Damage." Eminem's writing on this album, even in the cartoonish-Slim-Shady register, is doing internal-rhyme and multisyllabic work most other rappers in 1999 had not figured out how to do yet. The album won the Best Rap Album Grammy in 2000. By the next year (Marshall Mathers LP) he would be the biggest rapper in America. You can hear the takeoff on this record. The first ten seconds of "My Name Is" still sound like an event.