Handled by Denaun Porter and the Bass Brothers, the album featured a "raw, early 90s boom-bap" sound.
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.
Musically, Infinite sounds very different from the aggressive, shock-rap style Eminem became famous for. The production is mellow, featuring jazzy beats and smooth basslines reminiscent of Nas’s Illmatic or AZ’s Doe or Die. Lyrically, Marshall focused on complex rhyme schemes and wordplay rather than controversy. He rapped about the struggles of poverty, his hopes for his daughter Hailie, and his desire to get rich through his craft. eminem first album
He would channel this anger into The Slim Shady EP , which eventually caught the ear of Dr. Dre. The rest, as they say, is history.
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. Handled by Denaun Porter and the Bass Brothers,
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.”
Despite the technical skill, the album was a commercial failure. According to Eminem’s autobiography, The Way I Am , it sold . He often literally sold cassettes and vinyl out of the trunk of his car in Detroit. He rapped over mellow, jazzy, Nas- and AZ-inspired
The album’s standout track, "It’s OK," serves as the emotional anchor. Over a smooth, soulful beat, Eminem raps about poverty, relationship struggles, and the crushing weight of responsibility. On "Never Far," he displays a vulnerability that would later be masked by anger and satire. He raps, "Jealousy is misery, and misery is a tragedy / I’m trying to get through to you like a Wiki link." Even in these early stages, his ability to twist words was evident.