Best known as the Detroit hip-hop crew which helped kick-start the career of
Eminem, D12 went on establish a unique brand of cartoonish, leftfield rap in the
early 2000s, scoring two US number one albums. At a time when rap music in
Michigan was completely unheralded, the collective grew from open mic nights
held at a clothing store named the Hip Hop Shop, with MC Proof gathering
together the stand-out talents from the scene to mould them into a more formal
group in 1994.
Taking their name from a reference to the movie The Dirty Dozen, they modelled
themselves on crews like ...