I've finally decided that J. Cole's verse on A Plate of Collard Greens is better than any of Eminem's verses on Lose Yourself

It's my most recent "hot take" that I believe with my full heart.

I've always praised Lose Yourself not just for its rhyme schemes, but the patterns he utilises, to make not only the syllable count impressive, but keep the verse engaging, and increase pay-off for every line.

Another thing that song masters is incredible rhyme schemes, whilst telling a very coherent and compelling story. Whilst not every word is super unique, that sacrifice is well worth it to hear a genuinely compelling narrative play out.

APOCG has all of that but better. I don't say it lightly (I recently made a lengthy appreciation post around Lose Yourself) but that Cole verse is everything Em did and better, with the same quality of rhyme patterns, equally compelling content and less filler words (Em uses words like "it" and "he" to maintain his rhyme scheme quite often in Lose Yourself, which is nothing to be ashamed of, but Cole does it far less on APOCG), and notably - since we're comparing individual verses, and not full songs - he maintains it for far longer.

I don't want this post to be too long, but my last note is that these are both prime examples of rap, and even Lose Yourself is amongst the most impressive technical feats in hip-hop history, A Plate of Collard Greens is just a breakthrough verse, which excels in everything LY does, and impressively helped me to notice flaws in one of the most perfect demonstrations of lyricism I'd ever previously heard.