Eminem's childhood house

Eminem -- born Marshall Bruce Mathers III in St. Joseph, Missouri in 1972 -- grew up in a series of houses in Detroit and its suburbs, most famously at 19946 Dresden Street in Warren, Michigan, the blue-collar suburb northeast of Detroit that provided the setting for the film 8 Mile. The Dresden Street house was one of many addresses Mathers occupied during a chaotic childhood in which he and his mother moved frequently between Detroit's east side and suburban Warren, rarely staying anywhere long enough for stability to take hold. He attended Lincoln High School in Warren before dropping out.

The 8 Mile Road corridor -- the road that forms the northern boundary of Detroit proper and separates the city from its suburbs -- is the geographic and psychological centre of Eminem's origin story. His lyrics return obsessively to the poverty, dysfunction, and resilience of this specific landscape: the trailer parks, the section-8 housing, the strip malls, the particular American grimness of a post-industrial Midwestern suburb that offered young men very limited ways out. He found his way out through rap, spending his teenage years competing in freestyle battles at clubs and on street corners while working in restaurants.

The Dresden Street house became a minor landmark after 8 Mile was released in 2002. Eminem sold it in 2000 for $52,000; it was subsequently purchased and demolished by a fan. The address is now an empty lot. Warren and Detroit's east side remain the territory Eminem draws from, and the 8 Mile Road corridor is one of the more genuinely evocative music geography pilgrimages available in the American Midwest.