Emerging as one of the first ever hip hop artists from Detroit, Esham released his debut studio album, Boomin' Words from Hell, in 1989 at the age of 16.
He and his brother James Smith founded and ran the Detroit hip hop label Reel Life Productions.
As one of the first rappers to receive attention in the city, Esham was often cited as a major influence on another Detroit horrorcore act, Insane Clown Posse.
Esham is known for incorporating elements of rock music in his beats, and his lyrics cover a number of subjects, including death, drug use, evil, paranoia and sex.
[3] He studied piano, guitar, and trombone in high school, and listened to artists such as The Sugarhill Gang, Run-DMC, Ozzy Osbourne and Kiss.
[3][4] Esham began to write original lyrics, and was encouraged by his older brother, James H. Smith, to seriously pursue a career in hip hop.
"[3] In 1990, Esham and James H. Smith founded the independent record label Reel Life Productions,[2][4] which reissued his debut album with an alternate track listing and artwork.
[5] In 1992, Esham appeared on Carnival of Carnage, the debut album of Insane Clown Posse, released on October 18.
Jason Birchmeier wrote that "At this point in his career, his rapping has already reached near-peak levels, and his production shows a continued path towards an inventiveness.
Jason Birchmeier wrote that "most fans taking a chronological approach to his catalog should be fairly numb to Esham's exploitative shock attempts.
He seems very confident here, comfortable with himself as an artist [...] when he pulls everything together [...] he makes some of the best music of his long, fruitful, yet largely unacknowledged career.
"[18] In 2005 Esham joined forces with Insane Clown Posse and Lavel to release the Soopa Villainz album, Furious.
[19] Allrovi wrote, "During the course of A-1 YOLA, Esham takes the form of street hustler, kingpin, vampire, and all sorts of underworld characters, injecting his undiluted personality into each three-to-four-minute sketch.
His sonic backdrop remains raw but fresh, drawing an impressive amount of energy out of sparse beats.
[2] Smith released his twelfth studio album, Suspended Animation on August 3, 2010, followed by the album DMT Sessions, and a documentary directed by Smith, Death of an Indie Label in 2011, which was originally announced as a bonus feature on a deluxe edition of DMT Sessions, but was instead uploaded onto Gothom Inc.'s YouTube channel.
[9] Smith's lyrics have focused on themes such as death, drug use, evil, paranoia and sex, and have included references to Satan.
Smith refers to his performance style as "acid rap", comparing the lyrics to hallucinations induced by LSD.
[3]Following accusations of Satanism, Smith decided that Closed Casket would be the last album to feature such themes, and that he would no longer rap about the Devil.