The most popular rapper of all-time, Eminem, will tour Australia in February, according to strong rumours from music industry insiders.

Australian music industry website themusic.com.au today reported being told a tour by Eminem, aka Marshall Mathers, would be announced in October and the shows would happen in February, in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and also in Auckland, New Zealand.

Set to return? ... Eminem in concert at Melbourne's Etihad Stadium in 2011.

A reliable source confirmed to Fairfax that Eminem's Australian tour in 2014 will promote rapper's eighth studio album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2, also known as MMLP2. The album will be released on November 5 and is a good bet to top the ARIA charts. His last five albums made number one here.

Eminem has sold in excess of 100 million albums, won several Grammy Awards and arguably proved, most importantly, that the Beastie Boys weren't a fluke when it came to white rappers having credibility.

His shows are likely to be stadium gigs, as they were when Eminem last toured Australia in 2011. He played two shows at the Sydney Football Stadium and one at Etihad in Melbourne. Both venues have hosted crowds of more than 52,000 people.

Eminem rose to prominence as a controversial figure who was heavily criticised for his violent and apparently homophobic lyrics. In 2001, Peter Slipper asked the then-Howard Government to refuse Eminem a visa into Australia, but he was not banned.

He was at the peak of his popularity between 1999 and 2002, when he sold over 65 million sales of his albums The Slim Shady LP, The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show.