S. Samuel
After making headlines earlier this month with Rolling Stone naming Eminem the "King of Hip-Hop," the rapper's "I Need A Doctor" collaborator Skylar Grey offers her take on the title.
Although Em is her favorite, Grey admits no one person should be given the crown.
“Eminem is my favorite rapper, but I don’t know why you have to crown a ‘King of Hip-Hop,'” she explained in an interview. “There are a lot of good rappers out there. But he’s my favorite.” (VIBE)
Last week, former The Source co-owner Benzino gave SOHH his reaction to Em’s achievement.
“It’s a big thing to say he’s the King of Hip Hop and I basically predicted this. Don’t [people] realize by saying he’s King that it leaves a long lasting impression on these kids and that it’s f*ckin’ up Hip Hop? If everything is about lyrics, well dude’s nice. But guess what? I’m nice too and there’s a whole lotta other nice n*ggas out there too. How is [Rolling Stone] judgin’ everybody? Is it by lyrics? By songs? Because I don’t think anyone out there rides around bangin’ Eminem in the hood. How is he gonna go in on every pop artist back in the day and now he’s the most pop artist out?” (SOHH Guest Star)
Rolling Stone issued Em’s crown based on factors like album sales and social networking.
With his dominant album sales, YouTube views and social-media scores, Eminem takes the title as the current King of Hip-Hop. Unlike our Queen of Pop ranking, which Lady Gaga took in a walk, Marshall Mathers’s win was somewhat closer – note the fairly tight point range among our top three. (Rolling Stone)
Close contenders included rap stars Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg and Kanye West.
The magazine ranked 20 solo rappers, including Drake, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Rick Ross, Snoop Dogg and more. The publication looked at album sales, social media presence, YouTube page views, concert grosses, industry awards, critics’ ratings and more. Em, who was the world’s best-selling musical artist of the first decade of the 2000s with more than 32 million albums sold, had 7.5 million in album sales during the period Rolling Stone examined, more than 1.3 billion YouTube views and 48 million Twitter and Facebook followers. That was enough to land him ahead of Lil Wayne (No. 2) and Drake (No. 3), though Rolling Stone cited Drake as the artist to watch in the year ahead. (Detroit Free Press)
Check out a past Eminem interview below:
