Eminem and Black Thought are easily two of the most dynamic lyricists that Hip Hop has ever produced and now fans are debating who the better rapper is between the two.
It all started when Beats, Rhymes, & List posted a picture of the two artists on Twitter on Thursday (May 25) and asked: “Who’s the stronger lyricist? Eminem vs Black Thought.”
As expected, the tweet spawned thousands of replies. “Black Thought easily, Em is great storyteller but in terms of technical power it’s really not close,” one fan tweeted.
“Black Thought and if you don’t think so explain to me how is Eminem better and I don’t wanna hear nothing about numbers I’m talking pure rap skills,” a second fan wrote. “Eminem hard but he not better than Thought, imo old Em was harder than Em of today.”
A third added: “I’m going with Black Thought. His references to social problems, history and culture put him as my #1. He makes me google something he brings up in most of his verses. Em is nice but I don’t care for the content of his raps.”
One fan even went as far as to say he doesn’t have a particular favorite. “Pure talent wise, Eminem is probably better, but when it comes to execution, content, production etc, it’s Thought. Both are missing a lot of what I like in MC’s so I have no dog in this particular fight,” they said.
As debates started to heat up, fans started giving more analysis behind their decision-making of their respective pick.
“Em. Black Thought is Dope, but his rhyme schemes are not as unique as Em’s,” one fan tweeted. “His work on the Roots albums were good, but some of it wasn’t that complex. Em has better storytelling tracks and more double entendres.”
“In regards to Lyricism both are elite w/o a doubt,” a second fan began. “But personally I’ll go w/ Em. He’s a scientist when it comes to words, no one does it like him. Thought is a GOAT as well & I think for most people it will come down to relatability. To each his own. Respect both tho.”
Another fan added, “Black thought is top tier, but fuck me…Name me 1 good album of his? I’ll wait. That freestyle on flex but u cant compare that to any of Ems shit. Em been doing that his whoke career. Biggest selling artist (Not to just white people i may add) longevity! He’s the goat.”
An eager fan said he’d rather see both rappers collaborate as opposed to making a comparison.
“I rather have a collab between @Eminem and @blackthought than trying to make the comparison between the two greats. Hearing them go bar for bar together on a track or even a freestyle would be insane!”
Although the tweet spawned thousands of replies, both men are extremely talented in the music business and have decades of experience in the rap game.
While Eminem started out as a battle rapper in 1990s and as a founding member of D12, Black Thought (real name Tariq Trotter) started out as the lead MC of the legendary Philadelphia group The Roots in the late 1980s.
Slim Shady has released 11 studio albums, and has won 15 Grammy Awards over the course of his career. Tariq Trotter has dropped three studio albums, and won three Grammy Awards. The majority of his album work has came under The Roots.
According to Billboard, Eminem is currently the most-certified artist for singles in RIAA Gold and Platinum program history. Meanwhile, The Roots is one of the most consistent groups in music history.
In 2023, both men were on Billboard‘s list of the 50th Greatest Rappers Of All Time with Black Thought coming in at 28 and Eminem coming in at No. 5.
Check out more noteworthy reactions to the viral debate below:
Not close at all. eminem has some of the corniest punchlines you’ll ever hear. Black thought doesn’t spit wack lines. Em is the most overrated rapper in hiphop. shouldn’t even be in this conversation. Pharoahe month, ras kass, chino xl are so much better than em from a lyricist point of view.
name a race more racist than the blacks. if you dont think em is good your a literal hater. jay nas redman all say em is a one of the greatest.
What does race even have to do with anything the guy said? Only a racist would inject race into a conversation for no reason. What a sum thing to say.
Just because someone doesn’t like Eminem doesn’t mean they’re racist. It’s called having an opinion. You’re clearly just as stupid as you, yourself are racist
You do realize that Em is an acquired taste, right? Like he’s not what most hip hop heads were accustomed to. Now, when it comes to racism, you’ve got to be kidding me as guys like Post Malone and Macklemore and even Kid Rock have sold millions of hip hop albums while being lack luster at best and how do you think that happens?? Most black folks grew up on boom bap, Em is more of a cartoonish rapper and while he’s a great storyteller, most of us don’t relate to the stories. To further make my point, Em made a song called White America where he talks about this very thing in terms of a great deal of his fans are with him because he’s white. That doesn’t mean he’s not a dope MC but so is Thought and so is Mos Def and on and on.
Don’t think you always need to relate to an artist to think he is dope. Do you ONLY watch movies you relate to. It’s Entertainment. Em bright sinterin something different to hip hop. It sounded different, his hunger was different, his life was different. You can’t be an acquired teste and be one if the most successful mainstream artist. That makes no sense. Maybe in YOUR community he is but YOUR community is not the only people supporting hip hop.
On a lyrical level, Em now is miles above so many artist. To say black thought need had a corny line.. like. What.
They’ve already collaborated. These so called fans know nothing. Eminem is the GOAT
That other dude acted like Thought just came out of nowhere when he did that Flex freestyle, obviously not knowing much about his history. Why is this shit even news here?
Black thought is on my list of MCs that have never spat a whack bar! He is one of the best. Eminem is far more versatile than black thought has ever been. He can rhyme slow, run fast. Forget double entendre he has octuplets! True that has come with the expense of a wack line or two or three but the boy is just sick with the rhymes. I love them both for different reasons. Black Thought has an untouchable catalog with the roots. Eminem has untouchable rhyme patterns, takes more risk and his benefited as a result!
2 of the best to ever touch the mic. I would give the edge to Em on this as he is a more versatile MC and likes to have fun since he knows competition is none. Black Thought a top 5 MC, but Em is top 2 with Esco…
Em is the only person I think COULD beat thought in a freestyle battle. It’s a toss up. Get a good DJ like Preem to spin beats and they just spit. It would be bananas. That being said, Thought’s album with Danger was better than anything he did with the roots or anything Em ever put out. A classic classic. Something I haven’t heard in over a decade. IMO thought wins on that alone. Bar for bar it’s Ferrari vs. Lambo vs. Porsche. Who knows? It would be great to see. Both of them just spitting, not even going at each other. God damn that would be good…
People sleeping on Em for real, Em’s weakest bar and/or album still better than most of these emcees’ . I think Em raised tha bar so high he’s now his own biggest competition. For me, this new Em is just god-mode.
Lol black WHO??? Nobody never even heard of that fool. You racists. Eminem would rip him 56 new a-holes before breakfast
Eminem is considered one of the greatest rappers of all time by most of hip-hop fandom. Every rapper has haters. Eminem won’t be resoundingly loved just like everyone else isn’t. Y’all clowns keep bringing up race in this when not a single Eminem detractor mentioned race. You same clowns are the ones who’ll cry about “race baiters” when someone mentions race where it should be mentioned. Dumb!
Nobody was talking about race until the angry white boy gets mad at someone elses opinion on your hero. If you never heard of black thought, you clearly don’t know hip hop. Probably just know pac, biggie and snoop dog while saying the n word to your friends
Black Thought is a great spitter good lyrically but he doesn’t make good music. People check for his freestyle but not his albums or singles.
Stop lying. Cheat Codes is a classic. A bunch of The Roots albums are classics.
30 years and only 1 platinum album . Nobody checking for them like
30 year’s and only 1 platinum album. That tells you all you need to know
The album he did with 9th was very good if you’re a hip hop head that cares about lyricism
Drake the GOAT! Quadruple entendres, hits, album sales and punchlines. Why isn’t he in the convo?!?!?!? OVO LIFE YA HATERZ!
who cares? just appreciate both. tired of garbage by people who weren’t around when they both started. whos better this guy or that guy. WHO FUCKING CARES.
Both are great in their lives own ways. They are very different from each other. There is plenty of room for great artists. You don’t have to compare one with the other.
Necro
Black Thought and Eminem?? More like Slack Nought and Gentle Ben !!!!! Hahaha! I got ya!!!!!! HahahHaha!! Sheeeesh!! Gotta hand it to him tho, ain’t ya? You don’t have to be crazy to work here……but it sure does help!!!!! Hahahahaja!!! You guys know what I’m talking about! Anyway, the kings of the cypher are Big Grandma, Tender Bonanza, Shaka Bagpipe, Lil $paghetti, Kweef Championz, Dank Hummus, Morbid Darlin’ Tendertrunks, Hosiah muffin-gawd, Janet Crumpets, Lean Jesus Stank-Commode, Feral Madonna, Princess Mozarella, Dusty Boobs, Bouquet of Turds, Tobacco Helen and BeefSheet O’Judas. Who could forget Lean Jesus Stank-Commode on the 5 Fingers of Death? He lasted 30 seconds and all the rhymes were off the dome, the dome of his Samsung S3770. He blew Black Thought and Method Man out of the park!!
“I’m too ill, I represent Park Hill, pickle my dill, my momma’s name is Bill, I’ve never been to Brazil, my bank account says “nil”, I’ve never been to a mill, when I sleep I lie very still, your momma likes to chill, I auditioned for Kill Bill, my coffee I did spill, fishhook in my gills, I have a lot of skill, I own two dozen drills, put shrimps on the grill, what a thrill, my favourite skateboarder is Mike McGill, I drive a Seville, and a DeVille, drink water that’s distilled, got hits like Lauryn Hill”
Anyways…Downtown Quonochontaug is where it’s at, you know dat FOR REAL!!! Park Hill reprazent. Shout out Big Papa X and Tania – Tanz it’s been too long! I want to give a shout-out to Louisiana’s Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco for bringing to light the problem of Louisiana’s coastal erosion – god bless you KBB! Big shout-out to my boy Lawson for throwing me such a super fly Easter party and thanks for the Cleveland Hot Pocket, brah.
Get a life, retard.
This is relatively subjective until some type of metrics are introduced. For me, when I’m evaluating emcees, I like to use three metrics with a 1-5 (.5) scale. The first metric is content; what are they talking about?… How complex is the substance?.. How versatile is their subject matter? The second metric is wordplay; how technical are their rhymes? How complex is the way they arrange words?… The third one is style; How unique is the way they rhyme?… how many different styles can they do?… with that being said, when I run each through this system, eminem has a slight edge. They each would get 5s across the board… but where Black Thought loses the edge to Eminem is the style metric… I’ll stop here.
Black Thought has more depth of subject matter and harder punch lines. Em has more versatility when it comes to flows and entendres. I’d give the win to Black Thought for consistency but don’t pretend Em isn’t a beast either.
What’s this shit about Black Thought having no albums? (Cheat Codes is awesome, same goes for Glorious Game) That’s only a stupid technicality. Yeah, “The Roots” are a group but Black Thought was their frontman from the beginning. They made some real classics that aged better for me than EMs catalog. I heard the Slim Shady LP again a while ago, and yeah, a lot of that stuff aged kinda badly and feels a bit forced edgy and controversial. Another problem is that pretty early on EM was out for “cheap” hit singles and some of that shit is overplayed and a lot of the rest is kinda cringe, even though I hate this word.
Not saying that EMs first albums are totally bad, but looking back they are overhyped for me these days.
Can’t say the same about most Roots albums and Thoughts last solo outings.
That being said, I don’t say EM is that far behind Black Thought in many aspects of Mceeing, maybe he is even better in some technical categories. Just yeah, can’t say I ever loved EMs content that much and these days I could do without most of his work.
Thought is also a beast and probably only weaker in some technical categories. But not to a point where any of his stuff is weaker. Is just Eminem “plays around” a bit more while Thought is probably a bit more conventional.
When it comes to lyricism, Thought takes it for me.
Another thing that gets clear as day is that a lot of EMs worst stans don’t know shit about hip hop.
Again, EM gets his appreciation by most real hip hop fans.
Still when I read stuff like “nobody knows Black Thought or listens to his music, he only has the Funk Flex freestyle” , I don’t even know what to say anymore. Am I still talking to fans of the same genre?
They both are at a extreme high level of lyricism, but who really cares??? If you’re a Em fan you taking Em if you a Black Thought fan you taking Black Thought if you’re in between you taking you like the most. I would rather listen to someone that is a average lyricist with a dope beat and good hook then someone that is a great lyricist with a bad beat and below average hook. This is why guys like Nip and Jeezy fanbase was consistent, good productions, hooks and people feel what they say and they paint perfect pictures of what they come from. Em is a great lyricist but what he also does is cater to the whole song good beats and good hooks mixed with good lyrics, sometimes his subject matter is off if he’s playing around but overall he does a good job. Black Thought puts together good lyrics but I never like his hooks or production so it makes it hard consistently listen to his work.
I’ll have to go with my white brother Eminem
It’s Black Thought and it’s not close. The only real argument for Em is record sales and mainstream presence. But if we are talking just music, then it’s Thought. Em has more bad projects than good, spits a lot of gibberish, and his old classics have aged terribly. Thought never had the success and relevance but also never had a bad project. Em fans are a different breed tho, so I imagine a lot of them will be shocked at the amount of people that pick Thought
Black Thought easily but Em is dope when he goes hard and not pop
Black Thought easily but Em is dope when he goes hard and not pop
Slow news day huh?
EM puts every MC in the graveyard
The most overrated rappers in hip hop are Eminem, lil wayne, 50 cent and probably Jay z. So many rappers who are better skills wise such as Rakim, Big daddy kane, kool g rap, krs one, Redman, black thought, big pun, big l, nas, biggie, deck, meth at his 90s peak, Chino x, OC etc.
I think big record sales makes rappers like Eminem, lil wayne and 50 cent better than they actually are.