See the lost 1999 Eminem Detroit interview
(Credit: Wikimedia)

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See the lost 1999 Eminem Detroit interview

‘Stan’ rapper Eminem has always been proud of where he comes from and continues to represent his hometown of Detroit. Whether it’s the 2002 movie 8 Mile or ‘From the D 2 Da LBC,’ Eminem has always embraced his Michigan roots. Although he may have some bad memories of the city from his childhood, it has always been somewhere he acknowledges.

The city never showed him much love when he lived there, and local DJs never really played his music. However, the rapper (real name Marshall Mathers) is smart enough to know that kind of thing happens everywhere. In spite of his struggles while there, Mathers never gave up, and now he is on top of the world as one of the best-selling hip-hop acts of all time. It is pretty unlikely that, when he was at his lowest in the poverty-ridden city, he ever envisioned getting up, but he did.

Before his Slim Shady LP release in late 1999, Mathers was a musical genius on the verge of suicide due to his extreme poverty. Mathers had been on the underground in Detroit for years with his first album, Infinite, performing poorly, receiving little to no airplay by DJs in his city, and as a white rapper, everybody had written him off.

Mathers lived in the ‘8 Mile’ area of Detroit, meaning he lived near the road that divides Detroit. The 8-mile-long M102 motorway (colloquially referred to as ‘8 Mile’) is an infamous highway that is known for effectively segregating the metropolitan area of Detroit. Detroit’s inner city is rundown, and residents are primarily African-American. On the other side of the 8 Mile road, middle-class white neighbourhoods thrive. The road marks one of the steepest income divides in America.

Eminem lived on the side that marked the beginning of the inner city on Dresden Street, and that is where he stayed, crafting his lyrics and honing his skills. Of course, after he took part in the 1997 Battle Rap Olympics, everything changed for the young man. However, in 1999 at the age of 27, he went back to Detroit and gave an interview with MTV. You can watch the full interview in the video below.