Eminem has joined an elite group of recording artists with more than 100 million digital songs sold.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) congratulated Em on the achievement on Wednesday. Em, with 107.5 million songs pushed and three diamond-certified singles ("Love the Way You Lie," "Lose Yourself," and "Not Afraid"), is now bested only by Rihanna (121 million) when tallying digital singles. The rest of the top 10 includes Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Drake, Bruno Mars, Kanye West, and Chris Brown. RIAA's website shows only three artists—Rihanna, Em, and Taylor—have topped 100 million certified units with their digital single releases, with Eminem being the only rapper.
Em's most recent album Revival arrived last December. The album's campaign continued with this month’s release of the official video for the Ed Sheeran-featuring "River," which follows the flick for the Beyoncé collaboration "Walk on Water." The album landed the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart following its release, making Eminem the first artist to have eight consecutive albums debut at No. 1. Last year, Slim Shady was ranked No. 5 on the list of best-selling global artists, behind Ed Sheeran, Drake, Taylor Swift, and Kendrick Lamar in descending order.
This new RIAA achievement provides further confirmation of Em's legend status. Discussing his latest album with Complex, the rapper defined what success means to him at this stage in his career. "To me, success is getting the ear of people, and to me success is when I'm able to perform a show, perform at a show and look in the crowd and you see pretty much every ethnicity there is,” he explained. “That to me is super-powerful, because I'm not the only one who can do that. Music, I feel like it brings people together. I don't know if there's anything that brings people together like music and sports.”
