Looking Back At The Top Hip-Hop Album of 2009 On Genius | CPT PPP Coverage

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See what rap album grabbed the most pageviews in 2009.

In honor of hip-hop’s 50th anniversary year, we’re looking back at the top artists, albums, producers, and songs of “The Genius Era,” 2009 to the present.

“You’re walking down the horror corridor,” Eminem raps to start the first verse of “3 a.m.,” the first proper song on Relapse, the top hip-hop album of 2009 according to Genius pageviews. (Well, it’s actually Relapse: Refill, the expanded edition Eminem dropped to close the year, but that’s kind of a technicality.) Em obviously wants you to hear the word “horrorcore,” but just in case you missed it, he spends the next five minutes popping Klonopins, leering at Hannah Montana, and committing grisly murders straight out of The Silence of the Lambs, which he actually quotes in the bridge.

“3 a.m.” sets the tone for much of what’s to follow, as Marshall Mathers gives free rein to Slim Shady, who goes full Buffalo Bill over crisp Dr. Dre beats. Relapse is often crash, confrontational, and juvenile, and Em’s various accents probably weren’t the best artistic choices, but the rhymes and punchlines are so masterful that haters and stans alike couldn’t help but pour over the lyrics and marvel at this guy’s nerve.

When Relapse landed in May 2009, Kanye West told EW that he loved “Insane,” the one where Eminem accuses his stepfather of sexually assaulting him. Em told The New York Times that it’s “pretty much all fiction,” an “example of a rhyme gone bad,” which is wild, since Eminem had no shortage of actual traumas to rap about on this particular album. Relapse followed a nightmarish few years for Eminem. He got hooked on pills and nearly overdosed, and he lost his close friend Proof to senseless violence. For a while, Em was holed up in his mansion, too zonked out and depressed to scribble down rhymes, the one activity that had always saved him.

Fortunately, Eminem lived to tell the tale of his addiction, and that’s partially what he does on Relapse when he’s not in serial-killer mode. On “Deja Vu,” he quickly goes from sipping NyQuil to gobbling up Vicodins to binging on junk food and passing out in his car. The closing lines of the chorus capture the hopelessness he feels as he swirls around in a whirlpool he’s not even trying to swim away from anymore.

I wanna get away from this place, I do
But I can’t and I won’t
Say I try, but I know that’s a lie
’Cause I don’t and why, I just don’t know

In August 2009, Eminem linked up with Lil Wayne, Kanye West, and Drake for the hugely popular “Forever,” a song Em would include on Relapse: Refill, a move that solidified that project’s place atop the Genius year-end album list, right ahead of Relapse proper. “Forever” wound up being the No. 2 song of 2009 on Genius, after JAY-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” and it finds a reinvigorated Em holding his own against a bunch of guys who were arguably way more relevant than he was at the time. In a song largely about the pitfalls of fame, Em tellingly keeps the focus on the art of rapping, something nobody can ever take away from him.

The passion in the flame is ignited
You can’t put it out once we light it

1. Relapse: Refill, Eminem
2. Relapse, Eminem
3. The Blueprint 3, JAY-Z
4. So Far Gone, Drake
5. Ill Mind of Hopsin Saga, Hopsin
6. Man on the Moon: End of the Day, Kid Cudi
7. Bastard, Tyler, The Creator
8. So Far Gone (EP), Drake
9. The Warm Up, J. Cole
10. We Are Young Money, Young Money