The Game Vs. Eminem
Much like the current world climate, the hip hop scene has been going crazy this year. One of the most recent developments going on now involves veteran west coast rapper The Game, who has been making waves in the scene with his comments about being a better rapper than hip hop legend Eminem. This has created a lot of discussions with fans abroad and we at The Rap Clash are going to dive in on this widely debated topic.
For those who live under a rock, The Game has been repping the west coast rap scene since the early 2000s. The Grammy-nominated Compton rapper has an incredibly solid discography of projects and singles with his best-known pieces of work being The Documentary, LAX, Jesus Piece, and The R.E.D Album. In my opinion, he is one of the more underrated and underappreciated artists of his time and has earned his flowers through his aggressive presence and hard-hitting lyricism to represent the west coast rap scene.
But in 2022, The Game decided to choose violence. He has been on a tear the past couple of weeks and recently sparked a debate where he stated that he is a ‘better’ rapper than fellow rap artist Eminem. This all started when he appeared on Drink Champs earlier in March and went on to say that, “Eminem, Eminem is Eminem. I like Eminem, he’s one of the fucking good MCs, great MCs. I used to think Eminem was better than me. He not. He not. He’s not.” He then took the opportunity to challenge Eminem to a Verzuz battle at some point in the future by also stating, “Swizz [Beatz] and Timbaland know that it’s bigger than Verzuz. I’m not saying I want smoke with Eminem, I’m saying I want smoke with Eminem, him, and him, whoever. Bro, ’cause niggas know.”
This bold statement then sparked a lot of debate amongst fellow rap fans, more specifically between the fandom of the two artists. One thing we know about Eminem fans is that they go ABSOLUTELY BALLISTIC when they hear another rapper dare to say anything that goes against their favourite rapper, and so they carried on with the warfare. The Game clearly saw this coming and recently doubled down on his comments in a rant-fueled Twitter storm saying, “All this talk I see on the net saying Eminem is better than me because he sold more records is like saying McDonald’s is better than Tam’s burgers, it’s FALSE…translation for those of you who don’t know how major record companies do business: it’s a machine designed to work for the artists who PLAY NICE in massa’s house. I was TOO REAL, TOO UNAPOLOGETICALLY BLACK & cut the puppet strings early on in my career n decided to rebel…Major labels are known for BUYING ALBUMS & paying off everyone to boost sales of the artists…THEY CHOOSE to shine the light on. If you ain’t dancin’ to massa’s tune, you lose your budget & the machine is taken off your project and put to work on another artist who’s willing to SD [suck dick].”
Yes, that was a lot to take in I know. But this is a rapper who feels that he hasn’t been given the respect that he deserves for all that he has done in the rap game, and if I’m honest, I agree with some of the points he made here. I love the fact that he is confident in his abilities to go to battle with one of hip hop’s all time great artists in Eminem.
Rap is an incredibly competitive genre of music, with thousands of players to go to war with to find that bit of success. You can either hit hard or go out swinging rather quickly. If you don’t have that confidence in yourself to be the best, other rappers will eat you alive. And that’s one of the redeeming qualities of The Game, he has a lot of self-confidence, and his bars go on to show it, he is not going down without a fight and he has every right to say that he is better than not only Eminem but every artist he can name that he feels he can go toe to toe with.
I also do agree with the sentiment he made about sales and major labels. Let me get this straight, sales do not equate to greatness! Yes, Eminem may be the most decorated rapper in terms of sales, but he is not the greatest of all time. A lot of those sales can be contributed to major labels that sign these artists. They have been known to boost sales figures by buying albums and forcing these artists – more so the newer generation of rappers like 6ix9ine for example– to play along with the system and act in a way that seems disingenuous but makes them the most profit. This isn’t no secret; we know some of the shady shit that some of these major record labels put their artists through which is why you see more rappers nowadays go independent. I see The Game’s point here.
This is nothing to take away from Eminem however, any fan of hip hop knows that Eminem is one of the greatest emcee’s to ever grace the mic. He checks all the intangibles of a great rapper; his delivery is crazy, his lyricism is off the charts, his storytelling is phenomenal, his presence is second to none, his word play is crazy, he can freestyle like there’s no tomorrow, and he is widely respected amongst the big dogs in the rap game. Dude is crazy and was near unstoppable in his prime. And the craziest thing is that he didn’t do rap for the sales, the money, the accolades, or the Grammy awards either; he did it out of earning respect from his peers and he achieved his goal. That’s just about as real as it gets with the Detroit rapper.
I personally don’t think any of this was to shade Slim Shady for all of what he has been able to accomplish in his rap career, this is just The Game showing off that competitive edge that he always inhabited in his mindset and finding that drive and hunger again after coming out of retirement recently. I think it is good for him at the end of the day and it is nothing personal towards Eminem. Both artists have massive respect for each other at the end of the day and that’s what matters the most.
