Warning: I'm about to go full retard (Answer) here...
Royce is dope af... no argument from me. He is more culturally aware than Em, finger on the pulse and all that. 'Book of Ryan' is an absolute masterpiece of an album - "Cocaine" being one of the best hip-hop songs in a long while. But it was a good song because the heart behind it; the story and the chorus and how REAL it was. Lyrically, it was meh at best. And I can say that because I'm a huge fan.
But when talking about best pen game, we gotta be talking LYRICS here, guys and gals. That's the debate, not who makes better music.
So, the reason why most of you are dismissing Em is because he doesn't really "say anything" anymore... Okay, fair point. Is he out of touch? Sure. He's the fucking Howard Hughes of rap; Probably pissing in mason jars while writing bars in his notepad, growing a 'weird' beard and forcing people to get into his toy airplane named The Spruce Goose at gunpoint... But the fact remains, lyrically, he almost never stumbles, if at all.
I've looked. I've listened.
The people that think Em ain't shit also probably thought MGK won the battle they had because he said more catchy lines and personals... But lyrically he was NOWHERE NEAR Em on those tracks. MGK rhymed maybe 3 syllables once every 6 bars instead of his usual 1 or 2 syllables, and most of those were mistakes and/or broken up lazily by other words - he just got lucky in the cases where he
did connect. The overall rhyme was "good for him", Em even admitted as much, but there's so much more that needs to go into a verse nowadays. Em was hitting with punchlines and rhyming entire bars, and elongating them out through rhyme schemes that created even more punchlines and rhyme schemes in the process. His rhymes give birth.
But people liked MGK's last two syllables better, so he "won"... Ain't that fucking precious.
So what's the point I'm making? Because no one is talking about MGK in the same breath as Eminem here, or anywhere.
My point is that Em has always had an insane level of detail in his verses, and it often goes overlooked because we are used to it now. Even on 'Relapse' where he had absolutely ZERO to say and even less punchlines, he still was almost flawless in multi's, rhyme schemes and syllable counts. Break down Royce's best verses - He will be off here and there in multi's because honestly he doesn't give a shit - Em does. That's why you will rarely find a bar that doesn't connect in insane ways. His double entendres are the best in the business. And his ability to keep a rhyme scheme going on for crazy amounts of time (sometimes an entire song, see 'Legacy' on MMLP 2) puts him in a league of his own. That's what also sets him apart from Thought, who is technically sound as Em over an 100m dash ('Yah Yah'), but won't compete in a marathon.
Again, I've looked into this.
But don't take my word for it, read it from the man himself.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nme...-2639098%3famp
So is Em in the debate for best ever? Absolutely. Is he as good as he was in connecting with his audience? Not even close. Is he as good as he was lyrically? Guys, he's way better.
Is Royce & Black Thought dope? Absolutely. But are they 'hide lyrics inside other lyrics like trap doors for people to find later', dope?
Nope.
Do they have Rain Man's attention to detail when he's counting fallen toothpicks on a dirty diner floor and applying that to syllable counts?
Nope.
There's levels to this shit... But unfortunately, the artist is only as good as the audiences ability to perceive what's being said. As Heath Ledger's Joker famously put it, "I'm not a monster... I'm just ahead of the curve."
It's okay to admit that the curve might just take you right back to where you started.