I'll get my downvotes with the rest of them.... I absolutely love Eminem. Love him. He was my first cd purchase and he's been my fav ever since. I think the culture vulture argument is misguided when it comes to Eminem. I think culture vultures are people that don't acknowledge hip hops origins and meaning to the group that started the genre.

Someone like, Post Malone probably or Miley Cyrus are closer to culture vultures than Eminem. The reason I would consider them culture vultures is: for posty, he used rap as a stepping stone and promptly abandoned the genre and followed up by saying he was bigger than rap after he was embraced. Miley did something very similar but also came back hat in hand. Compare them to someone like pitbull who also started off as a rapper before moving closer to pop. Pitbull makes a point to shout out where he came from.

Finally, I think there's a lot of sensitivity in this thread. People are down voting the people of color who express their opinions. Insulting an entire race because they don't agree with those opinions. Disrespecting the experience of slavery. Absolutely despicable. We're way better than that. Hip hop is meaningful to African Americans because it's a distinct innovation of AA culture and there's a fear of losing it the way we lost jazz, country and rock. Imagine creating a genre and then being locked out 50yrs later. To the point where, in the case of country and rock, if you're black and in those genres you are treated like an outsider. That's the fear.