Steve Pulaski's foreword to "Eminem vs. Kanye West:" The following is an essay penned by a very good friend of mine by the name of Alejandro Hernandez. I met him my senior year of high school in my film studies class and since then he has captivated me with his intelligent commentary on the world, cinema, music, politics, etc. This essay perfectly articulates the way he can illustrate great points on a specific subject and make them accessible, so there is no ambiguity. The other unique thing about his writing, I find, is he sounds the same on a piece of paper as he does in real life, a true struggle of identity and voice that I have greatly found myself at odds with. Writers constantly battle with themselves to sound the same in an article as they do in real life, during a spontaneous conversation. I have not come close to perfecting this. Hernandez (or as I refer to him as "Almighty Dro") has and due to his well-roundedness and amazing precociousness at eighteen, I am honored to not only know him well but call him a personal influence. It is my privilege to feature a piece of his on my website.
Without further adieu, I'll let his actual thinkpiece do the talking.
With the past few decades, music in the world has seen some dramatic changes. Of course this is both an obvious and rather blunt statement. However, even in this rather simple statement, the products of these changes make the subject all too interesting. Other than the development of rock and roll into grunge, the emergence of electronically produced music as a thriving part of the music industry, as well as the popularity of the “boy band” as legitimate money making source, one of the most intriguing developments in the past few decades has been the demand for rap music. Rap music, otherwise known as hip hop music, is a “musical style in which rhythmic and/or rhyming speech is chanted (rapped) to musical accompaniment” according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Rap music has brought forth both a lifestyle and an attitude to a generation of young adults in a way that has grown to define that very generation. Originally having a heavy influence from the African American community, it has since grown to almost all cultures and races. And that, my friends, is where we find today’s dispute. With some of rap’s strongest and most influential voices have been African American. The bridge of other races accepting the style has been slow; what have been even slower are those very same African American voices accepting other races into their music. One man truly stands out as a pioneer that allowed rap music to be seen as a type of musical anyone, not just black people, could listen to and enjoy. That man of course is Marshall Bruce Mathers III, otherwise known as Eminem.
Anyone in the music business would tell you that Eminem’s impact has been not just on rap music but on music as a whole. His rapping talents has rocked Slim Shady to the top of the world. And the best part is, he’s a white guy. However, even though Eminem has been able to make the world a little more color blind all for the right reasons, we must face the questions: is he the best rapper of today’s generation?
Names such as Jay- Z, The Notorious B.I.G., and LL Cool J are also very credited with being some of the most influential and popular rap artist the world has yet to know. All great rappers, heck, all great down right musicians. However, even among these greats and others such as there does appear to be one name that has shown signs of becoming this generations Nirvana. That man being Kanye West. From a middle class, one parent family growing up in Chicago West held a strong passion for music from a young age. After dropping out of college at the age of 20, West heavily pursued a career in the music industry. First starting out as a producer, West so after was able to highlight his talents and has produced some of the most celebrated music to date.
With Eminem embodying the spirit of the American Dream, and West emerging as one of this decade’s most creative and ambitious minds, both have been credited with iconic songs; both have influenced the world in their own way; both are two of the greatest artist of our time. But when you examine both sides, an answer to our question must be reached.
The debates of ‘who truly the greatest’ is as old as the earth is (almost). Tyson or Ali; Jordan or Lebron; Apple or Android; our society is constantly pitting greatness against greatness and as much as I would love to write about how this all doesn’t matter and that everyone’s special and important in their own way, you and I both know that we’d just be lying to ourselves. Of course there’s going to be someone who comes in first and someone who comes in second. There’s going to be someone who’s better than everyone else. Denying this is simply ignorant. But the beautiful part isn’t that we all have to agree on one answer, it’s that we all can disagree and that’s okay. Comparing two great things is like coming an apple to an orange, but even if you pick the apple it doesn’t mean we have to banish and shame all those orange lovers. I feel that it is necessary to right recognize this before going any further. So if you’re offended by the following words, good, that means you’re actually thinking. But that’s a whole different argument. For now, Eminem vs Kanye West, who’s better?
Influence is a hard thing to measure, especially when the two people are still creating art. For that reason, let's first look at some of the hard facts; awards. That being both quantity and consistency. Let’s start with Eminem. Eminem has won thirteen Grammy Awards over the span of his 10 studio albums that have been released from 1996 to 2013. That’s nothing to sneeze at considering he was battling drug problems for a large majority of the time as well as coming out with some pretty music that has been negatively directed towards the very people that give out the awards. The fact that Eminem has more Grammy’s than albums released, shows that the guy’s got some mad skills and even the old white guys that dish out the awards know it. When looking at Kanye’s record at the Grammy’s it’s clear who has the advantage in this department. West has won a total of 21 Grammy’s, making him one of the most awarded artists of all-time. West doing this off of 6 solo records that have been released from 2003 to 2013. Not only does West have more awards than Eminem, he’s done it in less time and with less material. Point West.
Even so, both West and Eminem are part of the entertainment business, which is first and foremost, a business. Ignoring the sale would be like not counting three pointers for the all-time scoreboard for points made in basketball. In the sales department, Eminem dances circles around West. According to Forbes, Eminem is the best-selling artist of the 2000’s. Eminem has sold an estimated 220 million records worldwide. He has totaled over 2 billion views on his music videos on his official Vevo page on YouTube. in 2010 alone, Eminem’s music generated 94 million streams from sites such as Pandora according to Pandora’s official tracker; more than any other music artist. According to Billboard, Eminem has two of his albums among the top five highest selling albums of the 2000’s. The list for Eminem is simply too long to put into this one article. Basically, the man makes money; a lot of money. That’s not to say West’s sales are anything to mock. With the release of “Yeezus”, his sixth solo album, became his fifth consecutive No. 1 album in the U.S. upon release. All of West’s solo work has gone platinum as well. West also has had six songs exceed 3 million in digital sales as of December 2012 (“Gold Digger”, “Stronger”, “Heartless”, “E.T.”, “Love Lockdown”, and “Niggas in Paris”) . This places West third in overall digital sales of the past decade. He has sold over 30 million digital songs in the U.S. making him one of the best-selling digital artists of all-time. Although both West and Eminem are among the best of the best as far as sales go, comparing the two to each other clearly puts Eminem as the winner of this one. Point Eminem.
Our last measuring tool to look at is change. Change happens in an artist career, well in any good artist’s career at least. It is that ability to find success with different styles that can put an artist among the greats. Basically anyone can train themselves to make a really good apple pie, but when Thanksgiving comes around, if they’ll can’t make a great pumpkin pie what do you really have to show? Avoiding the “One-Trick Pony” label is something every musician has to fight; and when it comes to Eminem and West, here is where we can find our champion. Eminem’s career has matured greatly throughout the years. Eminem’s mastery of being able to use his talents to talk about both serious and humorous subjects is part of what makes Eminem, Eminem. The MC’s ability to connect with his audience, carry a concept over a series of albums, use complex rhyme schemes, and bend words in a way that would make Shakespeare's toes turn are all things that have made Eminem the rapper he is over the years. The best part about it all is that we as his audience have been able to see his skills improve over each album. There’s no doubt that Eminem has grown greatly as an artist, and his success goes along with that growth. At the same time, Kanye West’s style has also grown just as much if not more over the years. With West beginning his musical career as a producer, West has always known what direction he wanted to take a track from every angle. West was doesn’t just approach a track from a lyrical standpoint, with his deep understanding of how to manipulate the musical accompaniment, are the elements that has lead West to the success he has enjoyed. West’s music has also moved to embody not only rapping. West has been credited with mastering the sample, creating record breaking songs from simple riffs of other songs. The brilliance in this is that West has been able to take an already popular song, and make it his own. West use of auto tune has also been a trademark for West, while his album “808’s and Heartbreaks" drawing heavy use of auto tune, and oh yeah, that’s one of West’s most profitable albums to date. The diversity of West’s albums from a musical outlook clearly marks a man of many talents. Basically, West and Eminem are both fully capable of creating something beautiful with a single paint brush; but it is West, who has also mastered creating masterpieces with the paintbrush, the pencil, clay, marble, and wood. For this reason, point West.
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