“I’ll never be that good”: The rapper who was so good it sent Eminem into a depression

When it comes to naming the best rappers of all time, Eminem is one of the names that frequently gets mentioned. Some would even label him the greatest lyricist to ever touch a microphone. However, years before he became famous, Em wasn’t sure about his abilities, and particular artists knocked his confidence.

Furthermore, when he was a young man just observing rap music as an onlooker, one rapper, in particular, sent him into a depression because the ‘Stan’ rhymer believed he was incapable of achieving the level of lyrical prowess that this specific person had.

It’s hard to imagine Eminem not being at the top of the charts, and to this day, he is the highest-selling rapper of all time, but when he was first studying the art of hip-hop, he was a self-proclaimed “sponge.”

Em wasn’t the kind of individual who just listened to rap music and jumped straight into rhyming. On several occasions, he has recalled how he spent years watching MCs and figuring out what made them great. Looking at cadences and the way top-tier lyricists put words together, he wanted to find out the hallmarks of a great rapper and highlight the traits of a bad one so he could step into the industry match-ready.

While speaking with The New York Times about his committed preparation period, the Encore creator explained, “I was a sponge. I would gravitate towards the compound-syllable rhyming, like the Juice Crew. Lord Finesse, to Kool G Rap, to Big Daddy Kane, to Masta Ace, Redman, Special Ed. I don’t even think I understood why I liked it. I had a couple of friends that had to point out to me how many syllables somebody was rhyming.”

Eminem noticed he was drawn to this style of rapping early on and attempted to perfect it himself over the years. However, as the legend worked on his raps and tried to get himself to a level he thought was satisfactory, he hit a bump in the road when he discovered a new emcee who (in his opinion) was so far ahead of him that it led to some despondency.

Describing the rapper who changed how he saw the art of rhyming, Eminem unveiled, “Then Treach from Naughty by Nature came along, and he was doing all that, too.” Moreover, he didn’t see himself as cool at the time, so Treach had more than just verses.

He explained how he felt when Treach arrived and detailed, “[I thought] he was cool, too — his image and everything. I wanted to be him.” After the first Naughty By Nature project dropped, Eminem thought it was so good that he could never compare. As such, he considered quitting altogether.

Although it seems ridiculous now, the impact of Treach sent Eminem into a depression. He told The New York Times about this, recounting, “When the first Naughty by Nature album dropped, that whole summer, I couldn’t write a rap. [I thought] ‘I’ll never be that good; I should just quit.’ I was so depressed, but that’s all I played for that summer. Proof thought Treach was the best rapper, too. Every time he would drop an album, I would just be, like, ‘Son of a b****.’”

The Detroit native went even further and admitted that he had a similar sense of despair when Nas released Illmatic in 1994, confessing, “That album had me in a slump, too. I know the album front to back.”

Luckily for Em, he managed to surpass Treach. Although there would be a fiery debate if a debate comparing Eminem and Nas were to break out, both MCs are respected as lyricists.