Welcome to Three Personalities!

A blog dedicated to exploring and celebrating the creative genius of Marshall Mathers

    It's not often that one meets a person who's never heard of  Marshall Mathers is. While the number of people unfamiliar with such an iconic name is already incredibly small, most of those people actually do know who Marshall Mathers is, they've just know him by a different name-- Eminem. 

    Marshall Mathers (also known as Eminem, EMINƎM and/or Slim Shady) is considered by many to be one of the greatest rappers to ever pick up a microphone. Having sold over 220 million albums worldwide, he is one of the highest selling music artists of all time. 

    His significant impact on the hip hop/rap industry cannot be understated; from challenging racial barriers as a successful white rapper in a predominately Black genre of music to publicly freestyling his disgust with incompetent politicians and fighting for social justice, to say that Mathers is not an influential or meaningful part of hip hop culture is laughably preposterous. He's has set world records only to then raise the bar even higher by breaking the very records that he himself already held. His impressive talent and skills in rap have left many speechless and some questioning whether he's an actual human, a robot, or possibly a god. He has not only inspired many other well-known and popular rappers, but also people in the general public with his music, dedication, talent, and personal story.

    The majority of his music is deeply personal and emotional in nature as he commonly references experiences and people in his life-- songs about things such as:

• being raised by a mother suffering from Munchhausen-syndrome-by-proxy
• his anger and rage towards his absent father and an abusive step-father
• an exaggerated retelling of being bullied and beaten up by a kid a school based on an actual incident from his childhood that left him in a coma for several days
• intimate details of the marital problems between him and his ex-wife
• the deep love, admiration, and determination to succeed that he feels when he looks at his daughter
• the profound and overwhelming grief he endured after the death of his high-school best friend
• the positive and negative effects of achieving celebrity status and fame on him, his family, and his life
• his dangerous descent into drug addiction and suffering a near-fatal overdose
• his struggle to overcome addiction and maintain sobriety

The personal subject matter that permeates his music makes it easy for many people to relate to him, his feelings, and his experiences. Many of his songs offer encouragement and inspiration, sending the message that challenges are meant to be faced... and that with hope, perseverance, and courage, obstacles can be overcome. 

    With all of this in mind, it's no wonder that Marshall Mathers/Eminem is such a prominent figure both in pop-culture and the world. 

  It's rare to come across a person who does not have Eminem among their top 5 greatest rappers of all time. 

    The purpose of this blog is:

• to highlight, celebrate, and further elaborate upon all the things that make Marshall Mathers/Eminem such a powerful force both in hip hop and society
• to explain, break down, analyze, and contextualize his discography and artistic endeavors so that they may be better understood and enjoyed by fans and the uninitiated
• to deconstruct, disentangle, and make clearly apparent the facets and displays of Marshall's creative genius that the average listener and/or hater often misses in his work
• to support, justify, and further prove the artistic merit of Marshall's work as well as his influence and impact on hip hop culture by means of breaking down and analyzing his art in a variety of ways and identifying his influences/impact on other artists and the genre as a whole
• to gather and share sources and resources pertaining to Marshall and his life so that further research and analysis can be conducted in hopes of better achieving all the goals previously mentioned 
• to provide the author of this blog with a central and primary outlet for sharing her findings, experiences, connections, realizations, and thoughts pertaining to Marshall and his artistic endeavors with other fans and to disprove those who discredit his creative genius 
• and to show appreciation and gratitude to Marshall for being willing to share his art and story with the world. 

My goal was originally to write a book that focused specifically on critically analyzing Eminem's music as though it were a piece of literature- discussing and writing about the music in the same way I would compose a literary analysis. Since Eminem's discography is incredibly massive, writing a book would take a substantial amount of time before being accessible to others. While I haven't completely abandoned the idea of writing a book on the topics and concepts that I hope to write about in this blog, I had the idea that perhaps I could share my writing with the outside world and interested readers while working on it simultaneously. I figured a blog would give me the opportunity to do just that while also giving me the freedom to write about a variety of Eminem-related content whenever I want without feelings boxed in or forced to follow a specific outline/process. 

A blog also gives me the freedom to write about my personal experiences with his content and as well as my thoughts and feelings as they pertain to him and his work. 

I could write an analysis entry breaking down the personas and their characteristics and styles one day. And then write post about a time in my life when my Eminem playlist tried to give me relationship advice the next. I can write a post about the frame story told in the middle of The Death of Slim Shady album in the songs "Evil," "Lucifer," and "Anti-Christ."  But I could also choose to write a post about my favorite songs or albums and why they're currently my favorites. 

I could write a post about how Revival was overly hated on and is actually stands out as one of the most unique albums in Eminem's entire discography-- and my thoughts that Revival may have been part of Marshall's 12 Step Recovery process, making his anger, hurt, and rage expressed in Kamikaze even more potent as people not only ripped apart his art, but also his a significant part of his recovery from addiction that he was willing to share with the world. 

Then I could write a list of the songs that give me all the feels as a word-loving, intellectual English teacher and talk about how the first verse of "Bad One" literally made me scream and I'm pretty sure that's when I fell in love. 

I'm a very active participant on the Eminem sub-reddit, so some of my blog posts may be ideas I got write responding to Reddit posts or may be posts that I've written on Reddit previously. 

Point being, the blog format allows me to write about and make progress towards my goal of eventually writing a book about how brilliant this man is while also giving me the freedom to express myself and share my own experiences as well. 

So that's what this is. 

A place for me to express my love and respect for Marshall Mathers, his creative genius, and the things that I've discovered and connected as I've listened to his music. 

The first "post" (after this Welcome post) will be something I originally posted on Reddit and that I'm quite proud of on tips and notes for the best Relapse listening experience. I think this is a good starting post because it offers a good amount of contextual information on some of Marshall's experiences that will likely be referenced often. Therefore, it makes sense to me to give that information first. 

I hope that some people come across this and get some enjoyment and insight out of it. 

And if not, that's fine too. 

I'm just grateful that I feel the desire to write again and about something other than my broken heart. 

Thanks for that Marshall. 

You've really helped me cope with this whole... unfortunate life experience that I've have been and am continuing to experience. 

I'm incredibly grateful. 

And this is my way of expressing that gratitude. 

All that said-- 

Let's fucking goooooo.