Jay-Z’s scheduled shows have prompted a conversation about stardom in hip hop and revealed some gaps in the Brilliant Idiots hosts’ knowledge.
Charlemagne laments the absence of hip hop veterans with megastardom status, who would be able to sell out stadiums in seconds, like the Rolling Stones or Bruce Springsteen. “You can never see a 56-year-old hip hop artist who can do this”, Charlemagne exclaims.
Veteran Status
It is a rather sharp U-turn from the position when veteran rappers were targets of ridicule for staying in the game too long, as if grandpa rapping were something shameful. Eminem himself made similar remarks in his diss tracks years ago. However, the understanding now is coming that a veteran status means experience, means years of honing rapping skills for perfection.
Moreover, considering how many lives in the hip hop scene are being lost to drugs and gun violence, rappers who crossed into their fifties are literally survivors. They went through hell and high water and turned their lives around just to be able to live long enough to see their children grow. To become a grandpa in this context is an achievement and a badge of honour.
Bulk Sales
To become a grandpa who can sell a stadium – it is another level. We know perfectly well which artist is at this level. However, for Charlemagne, a hip hop expert, cultural commentator, and radio host, this is a mystery. So, when a co-host asks him where he can put Eminem in this same category, a megastar veteran who can put out a big show, Charlemagne shrugs dramatically, saying, “I don’t know! Em gotta do it. He hasn’t done it yet. I’m not saying he can’t”.
Well, since you do not know, let us provide you with some information. The only thing Em has not done yet in this context is turning 56. He is three years younger than Jay-Z. But being over 50, he has been selling stadiums at a rate never seen before, not only in hip hop, but across the music industry as a whole.
Breaking Records
Unfortunately, Em doesn’t give us many shows to work with, so let’s focus on his latest ticketed performances in late 2024.
In Austin, Texas, Eminem outsold Taylor Swift, who did a similar show at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA), so the organisers increased the field size to accommodate the nearly 100,000 crowd.
Later that year, he broke attendance records in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. However, in absolute terms, numbers were lower there. First of all, because the venue capacity was limited. Nevertheless, Eminem headlined the Soundstorm festival opening night in Riyadh before a 75,000-capacity crowd, a number unimaginable for the majority of hip hop acts, veterans or in prime.
Not the real show, but Eminem’s Fortnite concert has become the most-streamed event in gaming history – a good indicator of the level of interest from the younger generation.
So, Eminem’s shows are not nostalgia exploitation, as the hosts assume. Marshall can offer that as well, of course. However, younger people come to his music not because of nostalgia, but because it speaks to them and addresses the issues that matter to them today.
Personal matter
Meanwhile, Charlemagne, as always, struggles to balance his instinctive antipathy to Eminem with the hard reality he cannot ignore, admitting, “Numbers wise, Em is the biggest rapper who has walked the face of earth. But he doesn’t have the cultural gravity that somebody like Jay has. I don’t know if his music has aged as well”.
The hosts tried to pigeonhole Eminem in Detroit, implying that that’s the place where he probably could have gathered the biggest crowd.
Interestingly, Charlemagne contests this assumption, pointing out Em’s international success: “I think Em means a lot for people around the world. He sold too many records for me to be like, ‘Em couldn’t do that’.
I always recognise Em as a top-tier lyricist, great MC, but his music for me personally never touched me in that way”, admits Charlemagne. “In order for me to come to Eminem’s show, it has to be Eminem and Fifty on tour together. I’ll go and probably leave appreciating Eminem’s music more”.
All that said, when they tried (and failed) to remember when Eminem’s first album came out, all three just started rapping “My Name Is”.
“No, Em can rap”, Charlemagne concedes and shares the story of his first introduction to Em’s music. “The first time I ever heard Em rap was on a DJ Clue mixtape. He had this song where he was like, ‘And if I had one wish, I’d wish for a big enough ass for the whole world to kiss’. I didn’t know he was white”.
This song, “If I Had” was first released on Slim Shady EP in 1997, so Charlemagne was on Eminem rather early. And whether he wants it or not, it has evidently left a lasting impression on him.
So, maybe he really should go to Eminem’s show. And we know that this year, next year, or when Eminem turns 56, it will be sold out. Whatever venue his team chooses, it will sell out in record time, as it has so many times before.
