The song when Eminem “realised” he was like his heroes

Eminem is one of hip-hop’s best lyricists. The 8 Mile star has released over ten studio albums and has released a number of chart-topping singles. Until last year, his 2002 project, The Eminem Show, was the highest-selling hip-hop project of all time.

One of the tracks from The Eminem Show is ‘Sing For The Moment’ where he raps about the strains of being famous and how he came to the realisation that he had become as big and famous as those MCs he had admired growing up.

The track, produced by Jeff Bass of the Bass Brothers, samples the vocals from the 1973 Aerosmith hit ‘Dream On’ and the rock band guitarist Joe Perry recorded the epic solo specifically for Eminem.

The song’s lyrics were annotated by Eminem On Genius. Here, he explained what some of the track’s lines meant. In one annotation, Mathers wrote, “I realised I was becoming like the rappers that I looked up to as a kid. I identified with and loved LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys.”

He continued, “I felt like if everybody didn’t understand their music, it didn’t matter if they were speaking to me. So that’s what I was trying to make people realise on this track.”

Eminem has previously opened up about his love for LL Cool J. Speaking to MTV for their Behind the Music series in 2021, the Detroit rapper revealed, “When I saw the ‘Bad’ video, I was like, ‘the f*ck?!’ He had the whole package — the look, the swag, the chain, everything! You know, you just wanted to be LL Cool J!”

Mathers continued, “He was like the first rock star of rap. I’m like, ‘Yo, I wanted that.’ That is what actually made me want to rap.” Eminem quickly became an idol to many youngsters himself when he broke through in 1999 with The Slim Shady LP. You can listen to ‘Sing For The moment’ below.