Key artist case study- Eminem

• Eminem is an American rapper, record producer and actor known as one of the most controversial and best-selling artists of the early 21st century.
• Early life: As a teenage dropout, Eminem found a way to express his passion for language, as well as to release his youthful anger, through the emerging musical genre of hip-hip. He identified with the nihilistic rage of late-1980s and early-1990s rap music, and he was especially taken with N.W.A., the popular and highly controversial gangster rap crew from Los Angeles.
• Career Highlights: Eminem released his second studio album, The Marshall Mathers LP, in May 2000. The album showed off Eminem's poetic talents as well as his emotional and artistic range. His songs vary from manically funny to heartbreakingly poignant to explosively violent to disarmingly self-critical. The Marshall Mathers LP sold over 19 million copies worldwide, won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album, received a nomination for Album of the Year and is widely considered among the greatest rap albums of all time.
• Rehab, 'Relapse' 'recovery': For the next several years, Eminem recorded very little music and was largely consumed by personal problems. Eminem and Kim Mathers divorced in 2000 but continued to maintain a tumultuous off-and-on relationship until remarrying in 2006. Nevertheless, they divorced again several months later and began a protracted, ugly and highly public custody dispute over their daughter Hailie. Meanwhile, Eminem slipped further into alcoholism and addiction to sleeping pills and prescription painkillers. In December 2007, he overdosed and nearly died. "If I would have got to the hospital two hours later, that would have been it," he said. By early 2008, Eminem had managed to kick his addictions to drugs and alcohol and returned to recording music.