People clash over what to consider a classic album, and Eminem has his own answer.
Musing over his tape collection fro Zane Lowe’s interview in December 2020, Em used words “classic album” more than once. It is understandable, as there are no other reasons to pay hundreds of dollars for an old tape if you put a real value in its content.
Marshall values his hip hop collection because he sees the innovation, talent and greatness. Traits that can turn a record into the classic. Like Large Professor did for Nas when producing his track for “Illmatic”, or putting out the debut album “Breaking Atoms” for his own project Main Source.
This is what made Em give his take on what is classic:
Large Professor – that’s one of the most underrated MCs of all time to me. Because, man, that first album – that’s a classic to me. That’s right there with Brand Nubian, with “Illmatic”. A classic album to me is an album that you can play straight through. I think that’s probably would be my definition, one of the things that would factor in. Yeah man, that was a play-straight-through album, every song was dope.
Watch the rare footage of Nas’s live performance of “Live at the Barbeque” from “Breaking Atoms”:
Listen to Eminem talking abut classic below and share what a classic album is to you:
