The three Eminem songs that have become the most-streamed of the 21st century
Eminem is one of the most accomplished men in hip-hop. Since 1999, the rapper has been bringing us outlandish and experimental hip-hop. From the The Slim Shady LP to Relapse, the Detroit rapper has always made sure to make music that is true to himself, and as one of the first white artists from the genre to gain mainstream success and respect, Em has become one of the greats.
Raised in Detroit before his Slim Shady LP release in late 1999, Em was a musical genius on the verge of suicide due to his extreme poverty. The rapper lived in the ‘8 Mile’ area of Detroit, meaning he lived near the road that divides Detroit. The 8-mile-long M102 motorway (colloquially referred to as ‘8 Mile’) is an infamous highway known for segregating the metropolitan area of Detroit.
As an adolescent, Em attended battle rap events in the city and had his music doing the rounds locally. However, it would take an Interscope A&R intern to spot the young rapper at the 1997 Battle Rap Olympics for him to sign with Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine at Aftermath Records.
In 1999, Eminem exploded onto the scene with his Slim Shady LP. Unphased by his skin colour, he was ubiquitous in hip-hop and persistent in his aim to prove that he was a certified rapper. By 2002, he became one of the highest-selling hip-hop artists ever. Since then, he has continued to release music with an extraordinarily high work rate.
Ever since his arrival, Eminem has dominated hip-hop. With his final musical endeavour being his 2024 album, The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), Eminem’s rap career has been around 25 years in length and he is still going strong.
Until late last year, Eminem’s 2002 body of work, The Eminem Show, was the highest-selling hip-hop album ever. However, Outkast narrowly knocked him off the top spot, whose Speakerboxx/The Love Below now holds this title. Still, irrespective of this, Em is the best-selling rapper to ever touch a microphone when all his sales are combined, and he also takes up the top three concerning streaming numbers.
In the 1990s, hip-hop saw a shift to CDs, and the sale of vinyl began to decline slowly. But in 2003, when the iTunes Store released a feature for purchasing and downloading digital music, sales entered a non-physical era and ever since, it has been hard to quantify sales, especially with the abundance of piracy.
However, with the tools available to statistics companies, Eminem has come out on top with gold, silver and bronze concerning numbers. Spotify has proven to be one of the world’s most popular streaming services. That said, according to the company, his 2002 track ‘Til I Collapse’ is the third most-played song of all time, having accrued over 3.97billion streams. Although it was never released officially as a single, it is still eight times platinum.
The second most-streamed track on Spotify is another track from Em’s fourth studio album, but this time, the lead single ‘Without Me’. The Jeff Bass-produced song topped charts across Europe and Australia, earned him a Grammy and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. The multi-platinum record has 4.42billion streams to date and is still a party anthem.
However, unsurprisingly, the most popular Eminem song of all time is the iconic 2002 smash hit ‘Lose Yourself’ from the soundtrack of 8 Mile. The diamond-certified hit has 4.44billion streams and was performed by the Detroit lyricist at the 2022 Superbowl as his signature song.