Renown Southern rapper, who came into prominence as a founding member of Goodie Mob along with Cee-Lo, T-Mo, and Khujo, Big Gipp has been around since 1991. And he believes that Eminem’s role in the culture is monumental.
He talked about that recently on the Art Of Dialogue podcast. The topic that started the conversation was rather morbid, as Big Gipp discussed selling 2Pac’s publishing rights. And drew a parallel between the price of an artist’s catalogue and their current influence. Gipp believes that there is only one criteria of success:
It’s about whose music reached the most people. That’s what this game is about. Whose music reached the most people. Break color lines, religions, influence, everything. Hey bro, I ain’t seen no one bigger than 2Pac. And the closest to 2Pac is Eminem. That’s the truth. That’s the truth. It’s by numbers. Numbers don’t lie. Yeah, they do sometimes but when you talk about numbers for real, for real. 2Puc has stayed up for 900 mil. What other rappers gonna be able to sell their shit for that?! And some might because they’ve reached a certain amount of money status so they can ask for it. But the man ain’t been here for 25 years. Just to be able to say you can get close to a billion dollars is astronomical. I’m sure they’re gonna have to get Eminem billion dollars to take his publishing.
The conversation then shifted to a question that so many people are still looking for the answer to: Who had a better verse on “Renegade”? Knowing the answer, Big Gipp burst into laugh. But he felt like he had to provide some explanation:
Eminem. I fuck with Jay-Z, Jay-Z ‘s one of the best Top 5. Solo rappers? Top 5. But Eminem at that time was a fucking monster, man. He was eating everybody who stood next to him. Now, most people are gonna say, “I identify more with what Jay-Z said, because that’s my life and that’s where I come from, and that’s my background”. Okay. That’s right. But at the same time you gotta look at Eminem and say, “Yeah, but look at the kids that was looking up to him, look like him, and got his background”. That takes him in the middle of America and a lot of paces where we probably wouldn’t get yet. If you look at the demographics, Eminem took Jay-Z into a lot of places and a lot households he had never been in. Just because he was on song with Eminem. You got to look at both sides of it. Because Em had already proved his thing by doing his thing as a battle rapper, and then going to New York and getting with 50 Cent and being on all those remixes going on during them times. He had already earned the respect of everybody. But I’m talking about the people who wasn’t into hip hop and might not known about Jay-Z. But they knew Eminem. Because at that time Eminem was like a planet of his own. Nobody’s seen this before. […] Nobody looked at as a lyrical giant coming from Em’s community. M was the first to say, “I’ma get into that battle rap and I’m gonna get into that real strategic rap, and earn my respect”. And the biggest thing about battle rappers during that time is like, “Yeah, you can battle rap but you cannot come up with a song”. Where Em, he proved them all wrong.
