Eminem First Album May 2026

Marshall had just lost his job as a cook at Gilbert’s Lodge, his girlfriend was pregnant with Hailie, and he was living in a tiny, cockroach-infested apartment on Detroit’s east side. He and his friend/producer, the Bass Brothers, scraped together about $1,500 to press maybe 500–1,000 cassettes and records.

The cover shows Eminem looking young, clean-shaven, almost soft — a stark contrast to the bleached-blond menace he’d become. The music? He rapped over mellow, jazzy, Nas- and AZ-inspired beats, with a calm, multi-syllabic flow. He wasn’t being funny or violent — just earnest. eminem first album

Before the world knew him as Eminem, before Dr. Dre, before “My Name Is,” a hungry, angry 24-year-old Marshall Mathers released an album called in 1996. And it pretty much failed — spectacularly. Marshall had just lost his job as a

But without Infinite ’s silence, there’d be no Slim Shady ’s explosion. It’s the forgotten first step — not his debut, but his . The music

One original Infinite cassette — with the hand-drawn label — sold on eBay for over $1,000 years later. Eminem himself once said, “If you find a copy, burn it. I hate that album.”

He sold maybe 70 copies. Most were given away. Detroit’s underground radio stations ignored it. One local hip-hop magazine gave it a brutal review, calling him a “Nas clone.” The final nail: at a small record store, Marshall watched a customer pick up Infinite , listen to it, and put it back with a disgusted face. The owner later told him, “Nobody bought it. We threw most of them in the trash.”