Eminem’s Biggest Early Influences
Grammy-winning rapper Eminem has been a hit-making artist for over two decades. But before he emerged at the turn of the millennium as the hottest new rapper from Detroit, Em himself looked up to several other MCs who came up before him.
Eminem’s early influences included N.W.A., Tupac Shakur, and The Beastie Boys
Eminem started rapping in the 1990s, after the success of West Coast artists like Tupac Shakur and hip-hop supergroup N.W.A. Years later, Eminem would get to work with N.W.A.’s Dr. Dre, who had become a solo rapper and producer in the early 1990s, on albums including his breakout projects The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP. In 2015, the remaining members of N.W.A. asked Em to join them on a reunion tour as a replacement for Eazy-E, who died in 1995.
Tupac Shakur, meanwhile, is considered by many to be the greatest rapper of all time. Eminem himself penned a letter to 2Pac’s mother, Afeni Shakur, while he was on the come-up; the letter made its way online in 2015.
“You have no idea how much your son and his music has inspired not only the hip-hop world but…my whole career,” he wrote. In 2003, Eminem himself would become a part of Tupac’s legacy as he produced three songs for the soundtrack album Tupac: Resurrection; the following year, he produced the entirety of Tupac’s posthumous album Loyal to the Game.
As a white rapper himself, Eminem also looked up to The Beastie Boys. Eminem mourned the death of member Adam Yauch in 2012, telling MTV News, “Yauch brought a lot of positivity into the world, and I think it’s obvious to anyone how big of an influence the Beastie Boys were on me and SO many others.”
Eminem looked up to LL Cool J
One of Eminem’s biggest early influences was rapper LL Cool J. He looked up to LL for years, and was inspired to become a rapper after seeing the music video for his 1987 song “I’m Bad.”
“When I saw the ‘Bad’ video, I was like, ‘the f***?!’ He had the whole package — the look, the swag, the chain, everything! You know, you just wanted to be LL Cool J,” Eminem said of the rapper in a 2021 episode of MTV’s Behind the Music series. “He was like the first rockstar of rap. I’m like, ‘Yo, I wanted that.’ That is what actually made me want to rap.”
Other rappers Eminem looked up to
Eminem eventually became a superstar in his own right, getting to work with some of the biggest names in hip-hop, some of which he looked up to himself. He reflected on getting to meet some of his idols in a 2022 interview with XXL.
“The strangest and probably the greatest thing that’s happened to me over these past 25 years in a professional sense was getting to meet all my heroes. All the MCs who inspired me coming up,” he said. “It took me a long time to get over meeting Dre. When he walked into the room at Interscope, I was like, ‘What the f***in’ f***? This is really happening?’”
“And then getting to meet people like Treach, Redman, Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, Masta Ace, Rakim. I wouldn’t be here without all of them. That’s where I got my whole inspiration from. Just studying them,” he continued. “Kool G Rap would put f***in’ 10 words in two lines and it would rhyme, and they would fall right into each other. I studied that.”
“I listened to it, studied it, but also loved it, loved the music. Rappers like D.O.C., Tupac Shakur, and Biggie. Those were all my influences,” Em said. “I would never be anywhere near where I am today if it wasn’t for them.
“And to this day, I still get really f***in’ weird and freaked out inside when I talk to LL Cool J,” he added.
