Greenhornet
A God Among Kings
This isn't exactly true because one of the biggest reasons these other white rappers aren't as successful is because they don't have the hood. Eminem had Dre beats and was signed to Dre. Once we heard him on 2001, it was a wrap. Em had other MC's, credible MC's doing songs with him. He was featured on Soundbombing, Missy's album, Biggie's posthumous album, Jay's classic Blueprint. I remember C-Murder wanting an Em verse.
Eminem was also markedly different from Canibus. Canibus's main topic was telling everyone how good he was and how he was lightyears ahead of everyone else. His ability to write songs wasn't Eminem level.
That was my point too, it just deviated from the 2nd half ... Canibus and Eminem was a perfect example... one could write songs and one failed to. Having the hood I can see what you're saying but I disagree, eminem had extreme buzz before the Dre stuff, it was a combo of that stuff. He was underground and performed with gritty hood acts like the Outsidaz and what not, Thirstin Howl... But when the lid really blew off with Dre and the media , thats when other artists really just wanted him for buzz and attention. It gets muddy because not everyone obviously, but putting him on your project gave you more attention whether you liked him or not. Even though I think 50 can hold his own, he greatly benefited from Eminem's popularity, being attached just grows everything. Like putting him on Dead Wrong, technically fit and was great... but it was more because of the hype to me. Diddy wouldnt have called Eminem for that feature in the last 15 years now. Eminem kind of transcended his own stereotype by being dope immediately, the shock wasnt so much that he was white... it was "how is he stringing this wordplay along this way" Being white kind of came second once that died down a little bit, then they played off that for awhile and the mom and Kim shyt. The hood does not dictate good music or popularity, hardly many people in the hood buy albums or make it out. So I cant really gauge success and credibility based on that, most hood rappers end up being local icons like Bay Area, NOLA, Jersey, Brooklyn etc. I think Eminem dabbled in both on accident, pop later and hood in the beginning but I wouldnt say he was accepted in the hood. I would say he was just out there rapping anywhere at that point and through Detroit had ties and relationships with black people that were genuine, so to him it wasnt being "a white dude here" It was "Eminem is dope, he's about to lay his verse" He was just doing what he did naturally, Take Paul Wall for example.... always been around black people... Texas icon and had set up shop there. He couldnt expand because besides grills and talking about Texas he had nothing to offer. Instead of just rapping like eminem did, Paul wall just talked about what we already knew and it wasnt marketable anymore. Vanilla Ice too, he just rapped about being a bad ass white dude, but never progressed past shyt we already knew. There's only so many times MGK, Kid Rock and whatever can tell you "I'm white and kind of trash but I pop" there's nothing else behind that over and over. Women fail at this too because once you know she's fine ... and she sucks dikk like a pro... they keep making the same songs. That's why Latifah and Mc Lyte were dope.
To be fair and wrap it up, I know circumstance made Dre and Aftermath market more... but Em was hot before that. He would be the same person today as he was back then. His staying power wasnt with the cosign or the street in a real sense. It was because he knew how to write around his own circumstance. None of these people really can write around circumstance. You can list so many emcee's like this ... Mase was a god, but Mase said all that he had to say on the first album. Ras Kass didnt stick with his original stuff and lost because of it. Jin was marketed as a Asian rapper and didnt want to do that, but circumstance could have set him up to be a mega star if he could have written his way into that. Ludacris is a great rapper but doesnt say much in his songs but made that stretch. Alot of people just cant write into that sweet spot or they overshoot it and dive bomb. T.I, Snoop, The Game, etc ... all have weird business but they can play around it and make us tune in anyways. They stick to what we need, not some weird format. Kanye, Eminem, Beyonce, Jay, all change up but just enough to still market you the same thing that they are good at. You can say some Jay-z songs from 1994 and songs from 2019 are similar because he stayed in that lane. Alot of Eminem's stuff sounds the same and doesnt surprise you at all, like the kamikaze album, but he stayed in that lane. If you told me in 2003 he would put out an album like that, it wouldnt have surprised me at all. Joe Budden did similar with Mood Musik, people tuned in to hear him complain and relationship shyt... it just worked. He was smart for riding that zone and mastering it. Eminem is great, situational and zoney



em has that balance too which probably fuels him
where he actually gets stale and repeats himself, but then uses that to make better stuff
whether he does that intentionally of not... he's actually quite fringe with his concepts and execution the past 15 years. It would be more genius if he did it on purpose, which he probably does. It's all a fun game for the people that are really great at songwriting.
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