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

Broke, humiliated, and getting booed at open mics, Marshall snapped. That rejection directly birthed The Slim Shady LP . He stopped being nice. He created Slim — the psychotic, hilarious, venomous alter ego who didn’t care if you hated him. As he later rapped in “Rock Bottom” (written during this period): “I feel like I’m walkin’ a tight rope without a circus net / I’m popping Percocet… ‘cause my pride’s in the gutter.”

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.

Here’s an interesting story about Eminem’s first album — but it’s not The Slim Shady LP .

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.”