Em bowed down to Tupac a long time ago..so hes not the greatest but Em, at the height of his creativity, during that second album..it was a damn near a masterpiece.
The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show are classics. i even like Relapse despite it being largely panned.
I used to scream the lyrics to Cleaning Out My Closet at the top of my lungs. and i can rap a large portion of his discography word for word. but Marshall fell off around 2010. I feel the Forever remix was the begin of Em's decline.
That's where he debuted the screaming, Roid Rage flow that he's been using ever since. He also started to leaning on metaphors and double entendres which are not his strong suite. which is how we got cringeworthy lines like "Suck my dikk on the couch if you wanna cushion the blow"
Both Eminem and Ludacris are at their best when they focus on Multisylabes, internal rhymes and left of field storytelling yet both of them seem to be hell bent on trying to do the Fabolous/Lil Wayne punchline thing despite the result being paltry.
Lupe Fiasco, from a technical standpoint is the greatest lyricist to ever touch a mic. He can do what Em does (Multisyllables & Internal rhymes) and he also is a master at Metaphors, similes, Double and even triple entendres, Checkhovs gun, storytelling. But because he's so lowkey and because whites have a vested interest in promoting Marshall as the best in a black artform he get's overlooked but deep down they know the truth.
Joe Budden like Lupe can flip syllables with the best of them aswell as write some of the most lyrically dense complex metaphors, entendre's and similes hip hop has ever heard. Em might be a be a better artist than Joe but Mouse is def the better lyricist of the two.
Royce love's Em like a brother but he would wash the white boy too and deep down he knows it
Hell most of the black rappers in Smack URL would lyrically gang rape Slim. It's okay to enjoy the music but when you start calling him the greatest that's when i gotta correct you.