Rap God

About

“Rap God” is a 2013 hip hop song by the American rapper Eminem. The track has been praised for its dense lyrical content and high-speed delivery, having set a Guinness World Record for containing the most words within a hit song. Since the YouTube premiere of the music video in October 2013, the song has been covered and parodied by the rapper’s fans and remix artists alike on YouTube.

Origin

Eminem released the song “Rap God” on YouTube^[1] on October 13th, 2013. In two years, the song gained over 53 million views and 141,000 comments. At 4:26 in the song, Eminem begins a verse in which he raps 97 words in just 15 seconds. On November 27th, the official music video was released (shown below), garnering upwards of 190 million views and 196,000 comments over 16 months.

“Uh, sama lamaa duma lamaa you assuming I’m a human
What I gotta do to get it through to you I’m superhuman
Innovative and I’m made of rubber
So that anything you say is ricocheting off of me and it’ll glue to you
I’m devastating, more than ever demonstrating
How to give a motherfuckin’ audience a feeling like it’s levitating
Never fading, and I know the haters are forever waiting
For the day that they can say I fell off, they’d be celebrating
’Cause I know the way to get ’em motivated
I make elevating music, you make elevator music…”

Spread

On October 28th, 2013, YouTuber Rachdogg7 uploaded a video of a young girl covering a lyrically dense verse in the rap song (shown below, left). In two years, the video gained more than 2.03 million views and 5,200 comments. On December 5th, YouTuber Bet0niarka uploaded a video comparing the rapping speed of Eminem in “Rap God” to other rappers, including Busta Rhymes, Tech N9ne, Twista and Young Blaze (shown below, right).

On February 6th, 2014, TheFineBros YouTube channel uploaded a video titled “Elders React to Eminem,” featuring commentary by mature-age guests watching the “Rap God” video (shown below, left). On February 11th, YouTuber Mikey Bolts uploaded a cover of the rap song while impersonating the voice of the character Stewie Griffin from Family Guy (shown below, right). Within 13 months, the videos received over 13 million and 10 million views respectively.

On August 15th, YouTuber ArcadeCloud uploaded mock rap battle between Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty video game players, which contains a verse parodying “Rap God” (shown below, left). On November 13th, Facebook^[2] user Joey O’Reilly uploaded a video of his daughter Tamsin Rae covering the song, garnering more than 13 million views and 248,000 shares in four months (shown below, right). On December 4th, Rae uploaded the video to her YouTube channel.

Various Examples

On YouTube, many users have created and shared dubbed parodies of animals and inanimate objects mouthing the lyrics of the fast verse from “Rap God” (shown below).

Search Interest

External References