Eminem Names His Favorite Rappers

Eminem Names His Favorite Rappers While Talking About The Golden Age Of Hip Hop With Apple Music

In an exclusive new interview, Eminem sat down with Zane Lowe on his Apple Music show At Home With for a long interview discussing an array of topics. When asked about some of his favorite rappers in the game right now, Em name-dropped Lil Wayne, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, among others.

The Detroit legend said specifically, “I rap to be the best rapper, but I’m not the only rapper who raps to be the best rapper. Wayne, Cole, Kendrick, Joyner Lucas. They rap to be the best rapper, and I feel like when you push yourself like that, that’s what I feel like inspires greatness. But the list, man, sometimes you almost have to go by era.”

Em continued, “Tupac, I feel like rappers like Rakim, G Rap, Kane, Treach, Phero Munch, Gwin, KRS-One would drive some new sh-t, it just outdid whatever was before that. And then along comes Rakim, and he out does that. And then along comes G Rap and he starts out doing everyone else. Redman, Redman was, to me, one of the most consistent artists.”

The Hip Hop veteran went on to discuss the evolution of the rap game and how younger fans of the genre missed out on its golden era, which he considers the era of time where he would collect rap cassettes from his favorites at the time, like Run D.M.C. and the Beastie Boys.

“Hip Hop, I feel like in its infancy stages, as much as it’s evolved and it’s went through all these transitions and sh-t, I feel like a lot of these kids won’t understand the experience of Hip Hop in its infancy stages,” Em explained.

“And everyone … the younger kids are going to … everyone’s going to think their era is the best era, but this really was to me … the golden era of Hip Hop was the best era to me just because it was so new.”

He added, “You’d never heard it before. I know that I saw and heard a lot of people say that it wasn’t going to be anything. You know what I’m saying? Like it wasn’t going to last or whatever. Here we are what, 40, 50 years later? It’s crazy. And it’s the biggest music. If I’m not mistaken, it’s the biggest genre.”