Eminem is more successful (and we all know why ) but Jay is more influential.

Eminem. And that's the reason of his very huge first week sales. When the general public are asked about rap they'll say "Eminem" first which annoys me because he's so overrated.

Eminem.

Eminem

This is hard, but Jay-Z has a bigger impact because he has become a business mogul outside of music. He has influenced some artists to tap into the business aspect of music. Eminem is more successful, yes. But I feel that his impact is sort of limited compared to some rappers in the industry. He made a lot of impact, but since it's hard to choose, Jay-Z wins because of the business part of it.

Jay Z. Eminem had a great impact as well.

Jay-Z.

Considering only their contributions as artists, I will say Eminem. He brought rap more mainstream recognition than any rapper before him. Jay-Z has always catered more to rap aficionados, especially outside the US. Hard Knock Life is probably the only song that people remember, along with the Beyoncé duets Bonnie & Clyde and Crazy In Love. In fact, I think internationally he is more known for being Beyoncé's husband than anything else.

Eminem

That's the thing though.

While his rhymes are great, they are often inflated to be on some next level **** just because we have found a white rapper who does not make a complete ass of himself when he spits. Vanilla Ice was just that, a joke.

Exactly.

No one's saying because he's white, he has an advantage over the others. It's because he's a talented white rapper that he is put on a pedestal and is able to continue to see success even with stagnant material. There are plenty of rappers that are as good as he is, but his race plays a major part in why he is consistently more successful than those rappers. Someone like Vanilla Ice was always a joke and a fad. Eminem is so much more than Vanilla Ice.

Eminem's impact is probably bigger in music, but I stand by the fact that Jay-Z has become more than just a music icon. He's a business one, too.

This. I think often being white can be a disadvantage in making it in the hip-hop industry, but since Eminem has made it, it works to his advantage because it makes him stand out.

So no one outside the US has heard "Big Pimping", "Girls, Girls, Girls, "Song Cry, "99 problems", "Encore", "Forever Young", "Empire State of Mind"??

Anyways, my vote goes to Jay Z.

When artists are asked who they look up to- the answers consists of Michael Jackson, Beyonce, Whitney Houston, Jay Z etc. Im not knocking Em but he is just an angry dude from Detroit, who sounds depressed most of the times.

Eminem

Eminem , unfortunately