Eminem Reveals An Insatiable Passion For Collecting Cassette Tapes
The Detroit rapper’s passion for Hip-Hop extends way beyond rocking a microphone.
Eminem popped up a special guest Zane Lowe’s Apple Music and talked about a number of subjects, from his passion for collecting cassette tapes, to his favorite artists, as well as his own influence on the rap game.
The Detroit rapper revealed he has an insatiable appetite for collecting hard to find cassette tapes stemming from his childhood obsession with the genre he would eventually dominate.
“When I was a kid, I didn’t have money to buy every tape I ever wanted. You know what I’m saying? So usually what we had to do was go to this place called Record Time, and I would take the tape that came out a couple of weeks ago, trade it in for the new tape, whatever else was out,” Eminem said. “Me and my friends would take turns buying the tape and be like, ‘It’s your turn to buy this tape and I get to dub it, and then it’ll be my turn to buy the next tape.’ But it also was like you would dub some s### it’d be like …the air would be like … And you’d hear the air more than the tape. You’d have to turn it all the way up, and then all you hear is the bass from it and that sh-t. Yeah, that sh-t sucked. But I said to myself, ‘If I ever make it one day as a rapper, I’m going to get every tape that I always wanted.'”
During the sit down with Zane Lowe Eminem also touched on some of the artists who impacted his career, including Run-DMC, The Large Professor, and the Hip-Hop group 3rd Bass.
“I’ll never forget where I was when I saw the ‘King of Rock’ video. I was at my Aunt Edna’s house, and I would sleep in the living room sometimes with the TV on. I remember I was about to go to sleep and I don’t even know what channel I was watching, and that came on when they were walking up to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, “Oh, s### that’s Run-D.M.C.?’ I had never seen the video. I knew who Run-D.M.C. was, but I had never seen an actual video from them. I was probably, I don’t know, 11 or 12 maybe, somewhere around there. But yeah, man. And it was just so … like, come on, man. Who the f-k was cooler than Run-D.M.C.? Who was cooler? Nobody.”
While he is widely considered one of the greatest rappers of all time thanks to albums like The Slim Shady EP, The Marshall Mathers LP, and The Eminem Show, Em said there really is no GOAT.
“Hip Hop’s went through too many different transitions for anyone really to be the best rapper of all time, because rap has went through transitions,” Eminem reasoned. “It’s evolved. Now people are doing things with flows that I never could have seen happening. But at the same time, rappers from that era meant so much more to that era, just because there were so many innovators and there were so many rappers.”
Eminem’s rare interview comes on the heels of his new album Music to Be Murdered By crushing a 50-year-old chart record.
The album just leaped to #3 on the Billboard 200 chart, breaking a record held by Folk rocker, Bob Dylan.
Em unseated Bob Dylan’s 1970 album Self Portrait, which was the previous record holder.
The rapper’s album was boosted by the recent release of the deluxe version of the album, titled Music to Be Murdered By – Side B which features a whopping 16 additional tracks.
Music to Be Murdered By debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 when it was released on January 17th, 2020. The album is certified gold by the RIAA.