Before he became a “Rap God,” Mr. Mathers had to become Eminem. Opposite the ecstasy-binge of a Dr. Dre-produced major-label debut, the self prescribed “little white boy from Detroit” dropped his first set of studio-cut rhymes on this day in 1996 with Infinite.
Initially derided for its flow likeness to rapper AZ, and general round peg bland style, Marshall Mathers had yet to unleash the freakish trailer park Mr. Hyde-isms of alter ego Slim Shady. Instead he birthed a glorified demo of sorts, heavy repping “313”-area code days marred by slow-roll backbeats and trip-hop horn samples.
The world would eventually ease up and take it for what it was — a grainy peek into the rise of the then 24-year-old hopeful — naturally, as Eminem provided the arch to genre-progressive “sicka-sicka” talent later on.
So for diamond-in-the-Detroit Rock CIty rough sake, dig on this subdued “Infinite” time when a young Marshall chased “skills” that “got you climbing hills:”
Ayo, my pen and paper cause a chain reaction
To get your brain relaxin, a zany actin maniac in action
A brainiac in fact son, you mainly lack attraction
You look insanely whack when just a fraction of my tracks run
My rhyming skills got you climbing hills
I travel through your mind into your spine like siren drills
