Hip Hop legend Eminem has never been shy about firing back at his naysayers. His entire music career featured the Detroit-bred recording artist taking lyrical aim at rappers, public figures, and music journalists.
For example, 2018’s Kamikaze album essentially served as Eminem’s pulpit to lash out at many of his detractors and adversaries. Em further addressed his specific issues with music critics during an episode of SiriusXM’s Paul Pod: Curtain Call 2 podcast with his longtime manager, Paul Rosenberg.
“It’s frustrating when you’re doing some s### technically, and people who think they know what the f### rap is about start giving opinions on it, but they don’t hear what the f### you’re doing,” stated Eminem.
The 15-time Grammy winner continued, “Like if I rhyme an entire f###### sentence, and every syllable hit, they would literally think that at the end of it I was rhyming ‘bat’ and ‘cat’… There’s an art to that.”
Eminem shouted out Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, and LL Cool J as other masters of multisyllabic rhyming. The Paul Pod: Curtain Call 2 segment featured the man born Marshall Mathers also telling his doubters, “We ain’t listening with the same ears.”
Since his arrival on the rap scene in the late 1990s, Eminem has released eleven studio LPs. The Shady Records co-founder became one of the best-selling music acts in history. Em has amassed more than 61 million RIAA units. That total places him in the top 20 of the organization’s all-time list.
Eminem has three Diamond-certified albums. The Recording Industry Association of America certified the 8 Mile star’s 2002 album, The Eminem Show, as 12x-Platinum. In addition, 2000’s The Marshall Mathers LP went 11x-Platinum.
Curtain Call: The Hits received a 10x-Platinum Award as well. Eminem’s 2005 greatest hits compilation has charted on the Billboard 200 rankings for 596 weeks, a record for Hip Hop acts. Only two rap albums have crossed the 500-week mark, the other being Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City.