Eminem was born on October 17, 1972, in St. Joseph, Missouri. Named Marshall Bruce Mathers III, the rapper and producer developed his early career in Detroit before his collaboration with Dr. Dre reached a national audience. “My Name Is,” created during their first studio session together, became a breakthrough single from 1999’s The Slim Shady LP.
Mathers spent his childhood moving between Missouri and Michigan before establishing himself in Detroit’s underground rap scene. He competed in battles, circulated recordings and released the independent album Infinite in 1996. That record preceded the character who would define his breakthrough: Slim Shady. His 1997 release The Slim Shady EP introduced the persona before a copy reached Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. Dre signed him to Aftermath, and material from the EP became part of the foundation for The Slim Shady LP.
Meeting Dre meant working with someone Eminem had admired long before they entered a studio together. Recalling that encounter in HBO’s 2017 documentary The Defiant Ones, Eminem described looking at the producer and thinking, “You’re one of my biggest influences ever in life.” Dre remembered his new collaborator arriving in a bright yellow tracksuit. Their account of the session put the beginnings of “My Name Is” within the first few minutes, an immediate connection that became central to Eminem’s major-label debut.
The record earned him his first two Grammys in 2000: Best Rap Album for The Slim Shady LP and Best Rap Solo Performance for “My Name Is.” His solo success also created room for work with his Detroit peers. As part of D12, he recorded Devil’s Night, released in 2001. His next move into film would draw more directly on the battle-rap environment where he had developed his skills.
In the 2002 film 8 Mile, Eminem played aspiring rapper Jimmy “B-Rabbit” Smith Jr. Writing “Lose Yourself” required him to work from that character’s perspective while he was also acting in the film. Producer Jeff Bass had already developed the guitar part, but the collaborators had struggled to settle on lyrics. As Bass told The Ringer in 2022, “We just kept pulling it out every time we got together to record.”
The film gave Eminem a direction for those words. A recording setup installed in his trailer allowed him to work between scenes, and keyboardist Luis Resto helped develop the arrangement. Resto recalled that Eminem wanted to move beyond a track dominated by rock guitar. He added orchestral textures and percussion, shaping transitions around the verses while preserving Bass’s recognizable riff. Eminem’s writing, Bass’s guitar work and Resto’s arrangement became distinct parts of the finished recording.
“Lose Yourself” won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2003. The award credited Eminem with the lyrics and named Eminem, Bass and Resto as the music writers, recognizing the collaboration behind a song written for his first starring film role.
On November 5, 2022, Dr. Dre inducted Eminem into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Eminem’s performance included appearances by Steven Tyler and Ed Sheeran, and began with “My Name Is,” returning to the song he and Dre had developed at the start of their recording partnership.
