Before they were stars: see footage of teenage Kanye West and Eminem

Groomed for indie stardom ... King Krule. Photograph: Cory Schwartz/Getty Images

If the internet is good for one thing, it's resurrecting archive photos, footage and audio from the past lives of the rich and famous, their expressions often untainted by the rigmarole of endless promo, their smiles full of youthful abandon and their faces covered in a smattering of spots, or in George Clooney's case, the worst fringe of all time. In most cases, these images of the past reassure us of our own adolescent inadequacies, but in the past few days, the web has provided proof of Kanye, Eminem and King Krule's early abilities, with some brilliant clips of the artists cropping up on YouTube.

Most recently, a Reddit user posted what's thought to be a 16-year-old Eminem on rap track Poo Butt Day. Uploaded in 2011, and credited way back to 1988 (although some believe it might have been 1991, when he and Chaos Kid were operating under the Soul Intent guise), it's interesting to hear that he hasn't quite crafted that distinguishable voice, the track sounding somewhere between De La Soul and Bart Simpson.If you're wondering what a pooh butt day is, here's a teenage Marshall to explain:

Now a pooh butt day is something everybody's hadNo particular depression neither mad or sadYou couldn't see your butt because your butt is what it is'Cause when you're feeling like a pooh butt then your feeling like shit

There you have it. Take a listen below.

Footage of a 19-year-old Kanye West has also cropped up recently, shot at the New York City record store Fat Beats and captured way back in August 1996. Eight years before The College Dropout was released, and back when his brain was free from thoughts of leather jogging pants and Kim Kardashian, Kanye performed at the store's 6th Avenue opening. The shop's former manager, DJ Eclipse, told Complex that he already stood out from the crowd: 'Now we had a lot of the usual suspects in the place that day such as Ill Bill, Arsonists, Lord Finesse, Adagio, Breeze Brewin, AL Skills, Percee P, J-Live, Mr Live, Chino XL, Al Tariq, Black Attack, Xzibit, Shabaam Sahdeeq, Rawcotiks, Ak Skills, Rob Swift, Roc Raida, DJ Spinna and many, many more. But what took me by surprise was the appearance of this 19-year-old kid who at that time nobody knew. At least in NYC.' That outsider element is definitely evident in the footage below, the steely determination of a man about to deliver a flow that's flawless.

Perhaps my favourite of the lot is the clip below of King Krule, which captures the singer at 14 entering a Glastonbury unsigned artists competition. It sounds as if he's already paying homage to Joe Strummer with his sparse and slurring musical style, but he looks remarkably cherubic, far from the pale and hollow cheeks of his latter-day image. And he's smiling, a very, very sweet grin. Clearly, somewhere in the years before he released those gritty tales of urban decay as heard on 6 Feet Beneath the Moon, he learned the power of the po-faced.

There are, of course, other famous clips out there, many of which are of the Disney Club tweens - Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake - performing with the intonation of middle-aged crooners. There's also Justin Bieber, playing drums aged 9, and Beyonce, aged 8, already performing like a soul powerhouse.

Are there other videos from the online archive that show your favourite artists before fame hit? Let us know in the comments below.