Rap God: The 25 Best Eminem Verses

You know who has a lot of good rap verses? Eminem.

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Complex Original

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Newsflash: Eminem can still rap his ass off! Even though he's 41 years old now—and even though it has been nearly 15 years since he released his major label debut, The Slim Shady LP—Eminem hasn't lost a step when it comes to busting rhymes. He proves it yet again on his new album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2. Whether he's ripping line after line after line (after line!) on the aggressive "Rap God" or taking a closer look at his impact on the rap game on the introspective "Legacy," it's clear that Mr. Mathers is still one of the best rappers doing it. After all these years, he still sounds as hungry as ever.

At this point, though, should that even surprise us? For years now, Eminem has been rapping with a chip on his shoulder, trying to prove that he is the greatest rapper of all time—even if he hasn't come right out and said it. From the "underground shit that he did with Skam" that he recorded at the beginning of his rap career that "Stan" loved so much, to the jaw dropping, face-devouring rhymes he spit on Drake's "Forever," Em has dropped hundreds of crazy verses on the world. So, with release of his eighth solo album, we decided to take a look back at the best of them. It wasn't easy narrowing down his huge contribution to rap. But here are The 25 Best Eminem Verses.

Written by Chris Yuscavage (@ChrisYuscavage)

Related: The Best Eminem Songs

Related: The Best Eminem Albums

Related: Complex Cover Story - Dec 2017 : Eminem On How Jay Z Inspires Him and Trump Infuriates Him

25. Eminem f/ Lil Wayne "No Love" (2010)

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Verse: Verse 2
Album: Recovery
Best Line: "They call me a freak 'cause I like to spit on these pussies before I eat 'em/Man, get these wack cocksuckers off stage, where the fuck is Kanye when you need him?"

A lot of rap fans called Eminem out for not spazzing more on Relapse, which he released in 2009 after a five-year hiatus. So he made it a point to record several incredibly passionate verses on his next album, Recovery. One of those verses appeared on "No Love." It featured lines like, "When my soul started to rot, fellow/When I'm not at my harshest/You can still get roasted 'cause Marsh is not mellow"—and Eminem sounded alive again for the first time in a long time.

24. Eminem "As The World Turns" (1999)

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Verse: Verse 2
Album: The Slim Shady LP
Best Line: "Just tryna buy me some time, then I remembered this magic trick/Duh-dah-duh-dah-duh-duh, go-go gadget dick."

Eminem doesn't always tell stories. But when he does, he prefers telling stories of the most-fucked-up-shit-ever variety. On this particular verse, he started off by revealing that he was "tryna nail a trailer park bitch" and then proceeded to tell an incredibly bizarre tale that ends with him whipping out his, well, just read the line above. The story had all kinds of crazy twists and turns that only Slim Shady could think up and it was, as usual, as entertaining as it was disturbing.

23. Eminem "The Sauce" (2002)

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Verse: Verse 1
Album: N/A
Best Line: "I sat and took it, I ain't look at the shit, we knew/You'd probably try and fuck us with Obie and 50 too/[Hock spit] Fuck a relationship, we through."

Remember the Eminem/Benzino beef? Looking back now, that was such a big waste of time for Em. Everyone knew, and it was clear from the title of this diss track to the actual song itself, which was just one long verse, it was clear that this was competition. Even Em seemed to realize the silliness of responding to the disses that Benzino had been sending his way. "This is stupid," he rapped at the end of his verse. "I can't believe I stooped to this bullshit to do this." Us neither—but that doesn't mean that we didn't still enjoy it.

22. Eminem f/ Skam "Threesixfive" (1998)

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Verse: Verse 2
Album: N/A
Best Line: "So when Slim gets this M-16 burstin, you gettin' spun backwards like every word of obscene cursing/On the B-side of my first single with the clean version."

If you listen to this song today, it's pretty evident that Eminem was still trying to find his voice when it was recorded. But there are still flashes of brilliance here, and the "I don't give a fuck!" attitude that helped turn him into a star is present as well. He raps, "I'm not a rapper, I'm a demon who speaks English." You can say that again.

21. Eminem "3 a.m." (2009)

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Verse: Verse 1
Album: Relapse
Best Line: "Waiting for ya to turn the corner so he can corner ya/You're a goner he's onto ya/Out the corner of his cornea, he just saw you run."

On Relapse, Eminem reverted back into Slim Shady persona in an effort to, basically, scare the shit out of mainstream America like he did at the start of his career. It worked, with this vivid horror story of a song to kick things off. You can complain about accents all you want, but there's no way you can look at the way he strings together words on this verse and tell us he's not still a lyrical genius. 

20. Eminem, DMX, Obie Trice "Go to Sleep" (2003)

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Verse: Verse 1
Album: Cradle 2 The Grave Soundtrack
Best Line: "Me do this one all by my lonely/I don't need fifteen of my homies/When I see you, I'm seeing you/Me and you only."

Eminem is an excellent battle rapper. Battling was one of the ways he proved himself when he first started rapping. But throughout his career, he has only had to resort to writing bars about other rappers on a few occasions. This was one of those occasions and he made the most of it by taking a bunch of not-so-subtle shots at Benzino and Ja Rule. By the end of it, it was more than clear that neither of them were going to be able to handle any sort of competition with Em.

19. Notorious B.I.G. f/ Eminem "Dead Wrong" (2000)

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Verse: Verse 3
Album: Born Again
Best Line: "Red on the ceiling, red on the floor, get a new whore/Met on the second, wet on the third—then she's dead on the fourth."

On the first two verses on this song, B.I.G. delivered a stomach-turning dose of shock-tactic violence like, "I'm shooting babies, no ifs, ands, or maybes/Hit mommy in the tummy, if the hooker play me for a dummy." But those lyrics sounded downright tame next to the ones Em kicked on his verse. From the opening line, where he touched on topics like Devil worship and bestiality, to the end of the verse where there is "red on the wall, red on the ceiling, red on the floor," Eminem took "uncomfortable" to new levels on this verse. And, in so doing, held even more than his own alongside the man many people consider to be the greatest rapper of all time.

18. Funkmaster Flex & Big Kap f/ Eminem "If I Get Locked Up" (1999)

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Verse: Verse 2
Album: The Tunnel
Best Line: "Hip-hop is universal now, it's all commercial now/It's like a circle full of circus clowns up in the circuit now."

On "If I Get Locked Up," Eminem lost his mind. No, really. He rhymed about actually misplacing his brain. "My mind's got a mind of its own," he rapped, "sometimes I can't find it at home, it hides in the stove." So that should give you some indication of Em's mental state on the song. He rapped about all sorts of crazy things that were meant to offend people and then punctuated it by saying, "Don't ever tell me what I can and what I can't say." If there was ever a line that encapsulated Slim Shady's raison d'etre, that's it right there. 

17. Dr. Dre f/ Xzibit and Eminem "What's The Difference" (1999)

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Verse: Verse 3
Album: 2001
Best Line: "Get shot up in the hot tub til the bubbles pop up."

What's the difference between Eminem and other rappers? It's that when other rappers try to show you how "ill" and "crazy" they with depictions of graphic violence, the artistry in their lyrics can't match up to the shock of the gore. But when Em pens a verse about killing his daughter's mother, he punctuates it with the type of breathtaking internal rhyme pattern that you see above.  

16. D12 "Fight Music" (2002)

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Verse: Verse 6
Album: Devil's Night
Best Line: "I came to save these new generations of babies/From parents who failed to raise them 'cause they're lazy."

Unlike a lot of the verses that are included on this list, Em's contribution to "Fight Music" wasn't filled with crazy metaphors or slick wordplay. It wasn't that kind of song. But Em managed to match the tone of his verse to the beat of the music incredibly well. And the result was a cathartic fusillade "for any kid who gets picked on." Powerful stuff.

15. Xzibit f/ Eminem "Don't Approach Me" (2000)

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Verse: Verse 4
Album: Restless
Best Line: "And I'm the bad guy, cause I don't answer my door like, 'Hey hi!'/'You guys wants some autographs? Okay, form a straight line!'"

At the time this was recorded, Eminem was adjusting to all of the fame that had come his way after the success of his first album. And on this verse, he explained how he was struggling with it. He wondered if he could "hold on to my private life for five minutes longer" and talked about some specific situations that he was dealing with at the time. For instance, he made mention of the fight that he got into with a man that he saw him kissing his ex-wife Kim back in June 2000, and the gun charge that he caught right before that. His verse was an open, honest expression of how he felt about fame (mostly, about how much he hated it) and it really resonated with his fans as a result.

14. Drake f/ Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Eminem "Forever" (2009)

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Verse: Verse 4
Album: More Than a Game Soundtrack 
Best Line: "I'm Hannibal Lecter, so just in case you're thinking of saving face/You ain't gonna have no face to save by the time I'm through with this place."

All four of the superstar rappers who were featured on "Forever" came with solid verses. They obviously knew who else was going to be rapping on the song, so they made it a point to bring their A-games. But Eminem approached the song a little bit differently than Drake, Kanye, and Wayne. "I just saw the beat differently than anybody else did," he explained to Complex later. "For some reason, I felt like the beat was a double-time beat, so I rapped faster." That quick, aggressive approach helped his verse eat the other ones alive and marked the triumphant return for Eminem after his rap hiatus.  

13. Eminem "Criminal" (2000)

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12. Eminem f/ Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Xzibit, Nate Dogg "Bitch Please II"

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Verse: Verse 4
Album: The Marshall Mathers LP
Best Line: "It's just me being me, here, you want me to tone it down?/Suck my fucking dick, you faggot, you happy now?"

Eminem did not rhyme on the original "Bitch Please," which featured Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, and Xzibit and appeared on Snoop's No Limit Top Dogg album. But he more than made up for it with the amount of fun he had on the sequel. He gave a poke to Snoop's intro from the original—"Aww nawww, Big Slim Dogg," he rapped, "Eighty pound balls, dick six-inch long"—before letting the world know that there is a good guy trapped somewhere deep down inside of him, although he generally chooses not to show it. And if you had a problem with that, he really didn't care. Wonder what Timothy White—who Em takes a shot—thought of this verse? 

11. Eminem "Square Dance" (2002)

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Verse: Verse 2
Album: The Eminem Show
Best Line: "Til you fuck around, get an Anthrax napkin/Inside a package wrapped in Saran Wrap wrapping."

While the first verse on "Square Dance" featured Eminem taking jabs at Canibus and the last verse featured Em taking jabs at, well, everyone, the second verse was very political. Em commented on the Bush administration and on how America going to war in Iraq could affect the youth of the country. Em doesn't go the political route very often. But when he does, it's very potent, and this verse is evidence of that.

10. Eminem "Rap God" (2013)

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Verse: Verse 3
Album: The Marshall Mathers LP 2
Best Line: "School flunky, pill junkie/But look at the accolades the skills brung me/Full of myself but still hungry."

In an interview that Eminem did with Rolling Stone shortly after releasing "Rap God," he claimed that he was not calling himself a "god" on the song. "That whole 'Rap God' record pretty much from top-to-bottom is tongue-in -cheek," he said. But we would argue that the song—and, in particular, the third verse of the song—very seriously solidifies the fact that Eminem is simply not human when it comes to rapping. On the song, he switches up his styles on a number of occasions, name-drops a ton of iconic rappers, and goes on and on and on for more than six minutes. Some fans have criticized the replay value, or lack thereof, of the song. But we think Em really proved himself on it. He may not want to refer to himself as a "Rap God." But after hearing his verse on this song, we have no problem doing it for him.

9. Obie Trice f/ Lloyd Banks, 50 Cent, Tony Yayo and Eminem "We All Die One Day" (2003)

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Verse: Verse 3
Album: Cheers
Best Line: "Little sorry hoe-ass, go ask B-Real/We burn source covers like fucking Cypress Hill."

The point of "We All Die One Day" was to show the supremacy of Shady Records at the time. Obie Trice was making his debut, 50 Cent and G-Unit Records were starting to run wild, and Eminem was at the top of his game. And he proved it on his verse on this song, which featured a ton of witty wordplay and Em taking shots at everyone from Mariah Carey to Source magazine editor, Kim Osorio.

8. Eminem "Just Don't Give A Fuck" (1997)

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Verse: Verse 1
Album: The Slim Shady EP
Best Line: "I'm buzzing, Dirty Dozen, naughty rotten rhymer/Cursing at you playas worse than Marty Schottenheimer."

For a lot of rap fans, "Just Don't Give a Fuck" was their introduction to Eminem. And the first verse on the song was the perfect "Hi there!" It relayed the message that Eminem was trying to get across—that he cared deeply about other people's opinions did not give a fuck. And that he would display this with rhymes intended mainly to show off his enormous gifts as a lyricist and rapper. Even though he has recorded hundreds of songs since getting into the studio to record this track, his first verse here still epitomizes what he's all about as an artist.

7. Eminem "The Way I Am" (2000)

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Verse: Verse 1
Album: The Marshall Mathers LP
Best Line: "I'm not Mr. N'Sync, I'm not what your friends think/I'm not Mr. Friendly, I can be a prick."

Back in 2011, we named "The Way I Am" the third-best Eminem song of all time. And there's a really good reason for that. Up until this point in Em's career, his biggest singles were decidedly poppy—they didn't reflect who Em really was as a person or his scope as an artist. But on "The Way I Am," Em lit a fire under his own ass (he produced the song) and created a dark, moody masterpiece that featured him lashing out at his critics and trying to explain, well, just who he was. He also rapped about how he was struggling to come to terms with his newfound fame. "I'm tired of all you, I don't mean to be mean," he rapped. "But that's all I can be is just me." 

6. Eminem "Kill You" (2000)

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Verse: Verse 1
Album: The Marshall Mathers LP
Best Line: "They said I can't rap about being broke no more/They ain't say I can't rap about coke no more."

On his first album, Eminem spent a lot of time addressing the fact that he grew up poor. So when he started prepping his second one, some people wondered where he was going to take it and what he was going to talk about. On the first verse on this song, the first song on the album, he let it be known that he still had plenty to say. And he closed out the verse by letting America know that they probably weren't going to like it. "Blood, guts, guns, cuts, knives, lives, wives, nuns, sluts," he rapped. "Bitch, I'ma kill you!" Well, okay then...

5. Dr. Dre f/ Eminem "Forgot About Dre" (1999)

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Verse: Verse 2
Album: 2001
Best Line: "Slim Shady, hotter than a set of twin babies/In a Mercedes Benz, with the windows up, when the temp goes up to the mid-80s."

Besides providing Dre with a strong hook—and reportedly writing his lyrics for him—Eminem also contributed one hell of a verse to this late '90s classic. In it, he strangled a guy with his Karl Kani, broke both of his legs after trying to park his Dodge "drunk as fuck," and threatened to kill someone's dogs. This was when we all knew that Dr. Dre had definitely done a good thing by giving Em a record deal and asking him for a helping hand on his long-awaited second solo album.

4. 50 Cent f/ Eminem "Patiently Waiting" (2003)

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Verse: Verse 2
Album: Get Rich or Die Tryin'
Best Line: "Take some Big and some 'Pac and you mix 'em up in a pot, sprinkle a little Big L on top, what the fuck do you got?/You got the realest and illest killers tied up in a knot, the juggernauts of this rap shit, like it or not."

At the beginning of this song, 50 Cent yelled, "Hey Em, you know you my favorite white boy, right? I owe you for this one." We're pretty sure he was referring to the beat that Em contributed for the project. But he very well could have been talking about the guest verse that Em contributed, too. It featured Em name-dropping two of the greatest rappers to ever live alongside a fallen soldier who often gets overlooked by the mainstream—and insisting that 50 Cent was going to go down as one of the greats when it was all said and done. So it's no wonder 50 was appreciative.

3. Jay Z f/ Eminem "Renegade" (2001)

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Verse: Verse 2
Album: The Blueprint
Best Line: "Maybe it's beautiful music I made for you to just cherish/But I'm debated, disputed, hated and viewed in America as a motherfucking drug addict/Like you didn't experiment?"

There's a reason why Nas told Jay Z that "Eminem murdered you on your own shit" on his diss track, "Ether." On "Renegade"—a song that, to be fair to Jay, was produced by Em, and originally recorded by him and Royce Da 5'9"—the bleach-blonde don went off. He rapped about the influence that he was having on kids at the time and the criticism that he was receiving from mainstream America and essentially gave the middle finger to everyone who was talking bad about him. There was a lot of raw emotion in both of his verses. But the song's second verse (Em's first ) was particularly effective and proved that Em wasn't going to change, regardless of what other people had to say about him. He was a renegade, for real.

2. Eminem f/ Nate Dogg "Till I Collapse" (2002)

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Verse: Verse 2
Album: The Eminem Show
Best Line: "I got a list, here's the order of my list that it's in/It goes Reggie, Jay Z, 2Pac, and Biggie, Andre from Outkast, Jada, Kurupt, Nas, and then me."

After he enjoyed success with his first three albums and solidified himself as a force to be reckoned with within the hip-hop community, people started to put Eminem in the "G.O.A.T." discussion. And he addressed it on this song, which also featured him rapping about what it's like to connect with fans. "Music is like magic, there's a certain feeling you get," he rapped on the self-produced track. "When you real and you spit and people are feeling your shit." It was proof that Em was here to stay.

1. Eminem "Lose Yourself" (2002)

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Verse: Verse 1
Album: 8 Mile Soundtrack
Best Line: "His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy/There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti."

Has Eminem ever written a more passionate, inspirational song than this one? We would argue that he hasn't. We would also argue that, without the opening bars on this song, Eminem's movie 8 Mile wouldn't have made anywhere near the impact that it did. Much like Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger," which helped propel the Rocky movies to new heights and then took on a life of its own, "Lose Yourself" was the perfect tune to get movie audiences fired-up and involved in the story. And since then, well, it just keeps sounding better and better.

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