Eminem is addressing claims about him being a guest in the rap game.
According to Complex, while speaking with Long Beach rapper Kxng Crooked, Em spoke on Lord Jamar previously saying that he was a “guest in the house of hip-hop.”
In the interview, Eminem explained, “I don’t know if I’ve got a chance to say this yet, but the funny sh*t is with the whole beef with a certain person, I never said I wasn’t a guest. I’m absolutely a guest. I never said I wasn’t. And I never said I was king of anything, right? I had a song called ‘Kings Never Die,’ but it wasn’t me saying [I’m the king] … I never want to be the king of hip-hop. Who the f**k is the king of hip-hop? Is there a king of hip-hop?”
He continued, “People would say, ‘Just because you sell the most records doesn’t mean you’re the best. Just because you can rap 40 million syllables doesn’t mean you’re the best’ … I care more about the craft than any of the other sh*t.”
Em also spoke on his love for the rap game, shouting out YBN Cordae, J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar. “I’m so in love with this art form, right?” he said. “And I’m so passionate about it, because it’s really the only thing I ever was good at … I just love it. I love to watch, like, the YBN Cordaes come up. You’re like, ‘Oh sh*t, he’s going to be the next [big thing].”
The rapper then added, “… That’s another one of the things that make it fun too, being able to watch Cole and Kendrick come up, and seeing how great they were right off the bat. Aside from them, I pay attention to everything going on. All the new sh*t I try to stay up on—who’s doing what, flow patterns, that kind of sh*t, because it’s always interesting to me. Like DaBaby, I never know where his rhymes are gonna land. And that sh*t is so interesting to me because he does it so well.”
Eminem recently joined the billion views club, as the video for his record “Rap God” recently surpassed one billion views on YouTube.