A new way to measure an artist’s global reach has crowned Eminem the Most Global Rapper of All Time — and he’s landed in the Top 10 across all genres.
This new metric ditches familiar sales figures and focuses on something deeper: the number of languages an artist’s Wikipedia page appears in. The logic is simple: the more languages, the wider the reach.
Taking this metric as a foundation, Chartmastes.org has built a list of the most global artists. Classical composers and musicians were put on a separate list because of an exciting academic bias towards classical music noticeable on Wikipedia. Only artists whose pages exist in 100 or more languages made it to the list, and there were only 60 of them.
Expectedly, Eminem is placed within the Top 10, sharing No. 8-9 with Justin Bieber. At the same level of popularity, with pages in 153 languages, are J.R.R. Tolkien (author), Jimmy Carter (US President 1977-1981), and Moses (Hebrew prophet).
The Chartmasters entry on Eminem reads:
The two biggest male stars of this millennium are tied at #8. Eminem, the biggest selling artist of his generation, destroyed the geographical limits of US rap music. By the early 2000s, next to no credit was given to rap artistically speaking outside of North America. Eminem’s success left many rock fans seeing him as the enemy, the flagship of today’s bad, non-music.
The fact that these views sound so dated, reflects how much this American artist has succeeded in making his genre legitimately globally. He did so thanks to groundbreaking singles like My Name Is, Without Me or Love the Way You Lie. He is still smashing in 2024 with Houdini. In-between, Lose Yourself was a monster hit as was the movie 8 Mile, which secured iconic global status.
Here is the Top 10 most global artists of all-time list:
1. Michael Jackson – 260 languages
2. The Beatles – 208 languages
3. The Carpenters – 195 languages
4. The Doors – 181 languages
5. Elvis Presley, Queen – 177 languages
7. Lady Gaga – 163 languages
8. Eminem, Justin Bieber – 153 languages
10. ABBA – 150 languages
If you are looking for other rappers on the list, you will struggle to find them. Hip hop superstars Drake and Jay-Z are tied on 73 languages and didn’t make it to the Top 60. 2Pac (103 languages) ranked at No. 55. And that is all. Once again, the gap between Eminem and everybody else in the genre is mind-boggling.
Eminem, the rap god himself, shattered barriers and made hip hop a global language. From anthems like “My Name Is” to modern bangers like “Houdini”, his music transcended borders.
Read the detailed explanation of the methodology and the complete Top 60 list on the Chartmasters webpage.
