The reviews (from the few who heard it) were dismissive. The most common criticism? In the Detroit underground, he was accused of being a Nas and AZ clone. One local radio station refused to play “Infinite” because listeners thought it was a forgotten Nas B-side.
Before the blonde hair, the cartoon violence, and the "Slim Shady" persona, Marshall Mathers was a struggling young father living on the east side of Detroit. eminem's first album
By 1996, Eminem was a battle-rap legend on Detroit’s underground scene but a failure in every conventional sense. He was a high school dropout working for $5.50 an hour at Gilbert’s Lodge, a family restaurant. His daughter Hailie was a newborn, and he and his wife Kim were living in a low-income, crime-ridden neighborhood. Unable to afford demo tape production, he and his childhood friend, producer DJ Mark Bass (of The Bass Brothers), scraped together money for studio time. The result was Infinite , recorded in less than two months with a budget so tight that most of the beats were constructed from borrowed equipment. The reviews (from the few who heard it) were dismissive