Following the release of Music to Be Murdered By – Side B, Eminem sat down for an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music to reflect on his career. Talking about hip-hop's infancy as well as discovering Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys, Em suggested that due to the evolution of the genre there will never really be someone to claim the title of "best rapper of all time."
"Hip-hop's went through too many different transitions for anyone really to be the best rapper of all time," Eminem told Lowe at the 20:40 part of the interview after talking about his appreciation for rap pioneer Rakim. "It's evolved. Now people are doing things with flows that I never could have seen happening. But at the same time, rappers from that era meant so much more to that era, just because there were so many innovators and there were so many rappers."
Reflecting on the evolution of rap as a whole, he said the "golden era of hip-hop" is his personal favorite due to how new it all was at the time. "You'd never heard it before," Marshall remarked. "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."
Em also said he doesn't think anything he's done so far is as influential as those who influenced him. He does have a lot of current favorites, however, and named Lil Wayne, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, and Joyner Lucas as people who "rap to be the best rapper." If he was to list his favorite rappers, who would prefer to do so by era, name-dropping Tupac, Rakim, and KRS-One among others.
Later in the interview he touched on Pete Davidson's parody of "Stan" on SNL, which Em provided a brief cameo for. "His delivery was for sure really on point," he said of Pete's rapping, adding that he wasn't so sure of the sketch after he read the lyrics. "The whole thing was great."
Music to Be Murdered By – Side B dropped just ahead of Christmas, and Billboard reports the record is set to surge from No. 199 to No. 3 thanks to the deluxe reissue. Taylor Swift's second album of the year, Evermore, is expected to cling on to the No. 1 spot for the second week running, while Paul McCartney's McCartney III will debut at No. 2.
