So the question remains ringing after many years still… who is the greatest of these two rap titans, Eminem or Jay-Z? Today we @ Exquisite Music end the speculation with this article as we try our best to help you draw your own conclusion on who is probably the greatest rapper of all time.
FLOW & LYRICAL DELIVERY
Em’ and Jay are two of the three best flowing rappers in the history of the game, Biggie being the third. Whilst Jay’s flow was particularly more fluent and impressive during the first couple of albums he released, Em started off on the exact opposite end, his flow was stagnant and predictable in the earlier period of his career but as he’s grown older and had more time to express himself as a rapper, his flow has increasingly become much more potent and fat. So in this category it is almost impossible to call a single winner. Opinion of who flows better and has a better delivery will differ from person to person so in this category the conclusion is even.
Winner ? Even
GROWTH OVER CAREER SPAN
The growth of these two superstars can be best gauged by who’s album releases, in terms of the whole presentation, have gotten better.
Let’s call this one by rating 5 of Jay-Z’s best albums against 5 of Eminem’s.
Eminem’s 5 best albums in no particular order
· The Eminem Show (Released. 2002) 7/10
· The Marshall Mathers LP (Released. 2000) 8/10
· Recovery (Released 2010) 8/10
· Encore (Released 2004) 7/10
· The Slim Shady LP (Released. 1999) 7/10
Jay-Z’s 5 best albums in no particular order
· American Gangster (Released. 2007) 7/10
· The Black Album (Released. 2003) 9/10
· The Blueprint (Released. 2001) 8/10
· The Blueprint 2.0 (Released 2002) 7/10
· Reasonable Doubt (Released. 1996) 8/10
Winner? Jay-Z
SALES AND OTHER RELEVANT NUMBERS
Eminem:
· Total # of LPs released – 7 (1996 Infinite – 2010 Recovery)
· #1 Solo LPs – 6 (in a row)
· #1 Singles on Billboard Hot 100 – 4
· Total # of digital downloads – 30.5 million
· Best Selling Digital Single – Lose Yourself (2.9 million downloads)
· # of records sold in the USA – 38.3 million
· #1 Best Selling Album – Marshall Mathers LP (19 million units worldwide, this is also the best selling rap album of all time)
· Career Sales – Almost 90 million records sold worldwide (making him by far the best selling rapper of all time)
· Net Worth - Est. $100 mil - $125 mil
· Source – Music and other entertainment ventures
Jay-Z:
· Total # of solo LPs released – 11 (1996 Reasonable Doubt – 2009 Blueprint 3)
· #1 Charting Solo LPs – 11 (in a row, the most by any artist in Hot 100 Chart History)
· #1 Singles on Billboard Hot 100 – 4
· Total # of digital downloads – 21.4 million
· Best Selling Digital Single – Empire State of Mind featuring Alicia Keys (3.9 million downloads)
· # of records sold in the USA – 31.4 million
· #1 Best Selling Album – Volume 2… Hard knock Life LP (9 million units worldwide)
· Career Sales – Over 50 million records sold worldwide (3rd best Selling Rapper of all time after Eminem and 2Pac)
· Net Worth - $500 mil - $600 mil
· Source – Music and various other business ventures
Winner? Eminem
LEGACY & IMPACT ON POP CULTURE
Yes, both rappers are highly revered in the world of music and entertainment in general, but I think most sensible Jay-Z & Eminem fans alike will agree that Jigga-man easily takes the trophy when it comes to this particular category. While Shady has always preferred living a quite, almost ordinary life (hence he’s still residing in his home town of Detroit, Michigan despite the norm of celebs moving to bigger cities once they make it), Jay is a pop icon, and has annually been listed as one of the most powerful entertainers in the world by Forbes for a succession of years now. his marrying one of the most desirable and talented singers in the world and maintaining a more publicly appealing lifestyle in recent yeats has bolstered his superstar status to even greater heights.
Notable Achievements
Eminem:
· Has won 13 Grammys
· 10 American Music Awards
· 17 Billboard Music Awards
· 12 MTV VMAs
· Em’ has also won an Oscar award for the song “Lose Yourself” which was the title song of his semi-biographical movie, “8 Mile”.
· Apart from being cited as one of the greatest rap albums of all time by publications such as The Source and Rolling Stone Magazine, The Marshal Mathers LP is the biggest selling rap album within a one week period, of all time having sold an estimated 1.76 million units in it’s first week of release back in March 2000.
Jay-Z:
· Has won 13 Grammys
· 14 MTV VMAs
· 3 American Music Awards
· 13 BET Awards
· In 2008 Jay-Z became the only rap artist to ever headline and sell-out The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts.
· Has topped the Forbes Highest Earning Rappers List on more occasions than any other rapper since the inception of the annual list in the early 2000s.
· Is widely considered by fans and industry insiders alike, the best live performer in the rap industry today, always performing alongside his impressive band.
Influence on other rappers/Proteges
Eminem is the co-founder and owner of Shady Records, and artists that have either been discovered, mentored, influenced or signed by Eminem include 50 Cent, D12, Asher Roth, and Skylar Gray.
Jay on the other hand is the co-founder of Roc-a-fella records and most recently, Roc Nation, a record label and artist management company under Live Nation. He’s also served as CEO of Def Jam Recordings.
Artists who’ve either been discovered, mentored, influenced or signed by Jay include J. Cole, Kanye West, Rihanna, Nas (when he signed with Def Jam Records while Jay was still CEO), Ne-Yo and Fabolous.
Winner? Jay-Z
ACTUAL LYRICAL CONTENT
As much as I would love to write about this category, it would be pointless and I would probably appear biased in the favour of whoever I’d declare winner so I’ll rather opt to leave this particular category to be discussed on the thousands of Hip Hop forums that are always buzzing over such topics as who is the best lyricist between Em’ and Jay.
The bottom line here is it’s impossible to determine who is the better lyricist between the two, depending on personal taste in music, allegiance, and definition of lyricism, opinions of who’s the greatest rhymer of the two will differ from person to person.
Winner? Even
LIVE PERFORMANCE AND STAGE PRESENCE
This category is as much about who sounds better performing live as it is about who attracts the largest crowds, tours more frequently, grosses more off concert ticket sales, and generally in more demand by concert organizers.
- Who sounds better live? Even
- Who attracts the largest numbers? Jay-Z (because he performs more often)
- Who is on tour more often between the two? Jay-Z
- Who grosses more in ticket sales? Jay-Z
- Which of the two is in greater demand by concert organizers? Even (despite the fact that Jay eventually goes on to do more shows as Eminem turns down most of them to maintain a more “homey” lifestyle and spend time with his 2 daughters, Haley and Laney.)
Winner? Jay-Z
AS COLLABORATIVE ARTISTS
Eminem has sold more singles and downloads as a collaborative artist than Jay-Z, though Jigga on the other hand has scored more #1s on the Hot 100. On a more personal and critical note, I’m of the opinion that Eminem is a more formidable force collaboratively, I point to his recent EP with Royce Da 5’9, joint single with Rihanna (love the way you lie), “Airplanes part II” with B.o.B and Hayley Williams and “I Need a Doctor” with Dr. Dre and Skylar Gray as just a few of the most recent examples that assert Em as the more impressive featured artist of the two.
Jay has never really been renowned as a big-time collaborator apart from his works with Kanye & Beyonce in recent years.
Winner? Eminem
DISSING ABILITY
Is there anyone out there who wants to argue that Slim Shady is storeys above Jay-Z in terms of his ability to come up with ego shattering metaphors and punch-lines? The list of people Em’ has lyrically massacred include Ja Rule, Nelly, Jermaine Dupri, Canibus and Mariah Carey, just to mention a few.
While on the other hand Jay-Z has never really been involved in any serious feud besides the one he had with fellow New York rapper, Nas, in the early 2000s. Though Jay initially threw a couple of mean punches on the song, The Takeover, Nas would later respond with what is still considered one of the meanest diss songs of all time, Ether. Jigga attempted responding with the release of a response diss song, Super Ugly, but it never really took off, subsequently setting Nas up as the presumed winner of the feud.
Winner? Eminem
VARIETY AND NATURE OF THEMES AND SUBJECTS IN ARTIST’S MUSIC
This is another category that cannot be concluded by one person’s perspective, opinions on who is more legit and covers more topics will differ between Em’s and Jay’s fans respectively.
In retrospect however, one notices that initially Jay’s music mainly incorporated themes of growing up poor in Marcy projects and turning to drug dealing as a youngster as a way of survival. However as Jay’s fanbase kept growing, and his bank account started overflowing, and his head got over inflated, his music began being increasingly about accumulating wealth, living the good life, and being God’s gift to Hip-Hop, leading some to feel that Jay had lyrically “fallen off and lost touch with the streets”. I look at it this way though; music is a manifestation and extension of the person who’s making it, in simple terms, if I’m rich it’s inevitable that I’m going to spend more time and energy preaching wealth and decadence, if I’m poor on the other hand, it only makes sense to rap about things as I see them from my perspective, which in this context is a poor or struggling persons perspective. So can one really be mad at Jigga for being so braggadocious in his music in recent years? Well it’s not like he’s lying about any of the lines in his songs… He does earn top dollar, he is friends with the likes of Will Smith, Bill Gates & Barak Obama, he is married to a women who is the subject of many men’s fantasies, he is one of the greatest rappers of all time and if he keeps making big money as he has been for a while now, it’s inevitable that he’ll probably graduate to being a billionaire within the next couple of years… Bottom line is he’s entitled to be being a big-headed boy and those who hold that view are the ones who continue to embrace his music though it’s gone through changes since the early 90s.
Eminem has always been less about flashing his wealth and glorifying himself, and more about social commentary, self-loathing, representing the feelings and concerns of struggling people at grass root levels. As a result of “keeping it real”, most Eminem die-hard fanatics will always point to this as being the biggest difference between Em and Jigga, and in their opinion the one true edge Shady has over Jay.
Well I’ve tried to express what each group of fans would say about their favourite rapper, but that what the fans would say… Still the question remains, who is the better of the two? Well, there is no real winner, the only truth that exists is your personal perspective, what you find impressive and appealing may not be as “dope” to someone else, but is your reality nonetheless.
Winner? Even
Overall winner? Eminem won 1 category more than Jay-Z so he wins, as rated by ExquisiteMusic.Blogspot.com
*Note: The author of this article is a fan of neither Eminem nor Jay-Z.
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