Slim Shady LP turns 20: Five ways Eminem changed hip hop

In a career that has spanned more than two decades, Eminem has left an indelible mark on the world of hip hop.

His breakout album, The Slim Shady LP, turns 20 this weekend. The record set the tone for much of his career: one of rolling controversy, unbridled talent and unprecedented success.

Its lyrics were startlingly abrasive, rippling with a sense of violence and dysfunctionality that was made all the more disturbing by how devilishly cartoonish it seemed. It led to a moral outrage and was widely decried, while others praised its unflinching introspection and brilliant wordplay. In the years that followed the release of the LP, for better or for worse, Eminem shaped hip hop in a way few others have.

To mark the anniversary of the Slim Shady LP, we've picked out five ways in which Marshall Mathers changed the very face of rap.

He turned hip hop into a commercial world-conqueror

Eminem’s commercial dominance of the pop music sphere is unrivalled within the hip hop scene. He’s sold well over 100 million albums worldwide while his nearest rap competitor, Kanye West, is lagging well behind. In fact, Eminem was the best selling musician of the 2000s across any genre. Even into this decade, with his artistic peak disappearing in the rearview mirror, his albums have been commercial hits — his latest LP, Kamikaze, still hit the number one spot in multiple countries. He was the one who truly showed hip-hop could conquer the world not just culturally, but commercially too.

His flow was like nothing before it

In the mid-to-late 80s, Rakim revolutionised rapping. His flows eschewed the rigidity of MCs before him and instead snaked between beats, his fluid rhymes appearing within the words themselves rather than just at the end of bars. Eminem took that and pushed things into overdrive, rapping with a manic speed and erratic rhythm. His multiple personas — chiefly Slim Shady, Marshall Mathers and Eminem — allowed him to play with pitch and speed, in the process forging an inimitable delivery style. It cleared the way for other rappers to be experimental and bold with their flows; Kendrick Lamar, who flips between voices and personas often within verses, is a leading example.

His music videos revolutionised the art form

When Eminem dropped a video, it was an event. In fact, many times they ran this risk of overshadowing the music — if the songs themselves weren’t so very strong, they definitely would have. His videos were cinematic, varied, unforgettable and unlike anything else that came before them. There was the grim juxtaposition of childhood trauma and melodrama in the video for Cleanin’ Out My Closet; the stalkerish tragedy of Stan; the comic-book hilarity of Without Me; and the pure absurdity of The Real Slim Shady. He took inspiration from Michael Jackson inasmuch as he made music videos into their own entity, and delivered them to the unexpecting hip hop world.

He embraced weirdness and made it successful

Much of hip hop in the 90s was fuelled by uber-masculinity — a reflection of the unsettled, violent environment from which much of it sprung. Biggie and Tupac often found themselves in introspective moods and, at times, started to peel back the bravado, but it was Eminem who shone a soberingly bright light on the darkness within. He rapped without blinking, dredging up his traumatic childhood, his violent thoughts and his addictions, all while managing to score hit single after hit single. It proved that weirdness, honesty and fear could be embraced without sacrificing success.

He opened the door for white rappers

No right-thinking person would ever have claimed the lack of white representation in hip-hop was a problem, so Eminem’s entry into and subsequent domination of the genre was controversial — the rights and wrongs of it are still debated to this day. That he is the best-selling rapper of all time, yet one of only a handful of prominent white hip-hop artists, presents an irony that is open to obvious interpretations. But it’s undisputed that he gave credibility to white rappers, something that was started in earnest by the Beastie Boys but solidified by Eminem. Macklemore, Post Malone and others might not be where they are today — or rather, they would have had a very different path to get there — were it not for Eminem.