"Lose Yourself" is released

Why it matters

"Lose Yourself" came out October 28, 2002, as the lead single from the 8 Mile soundtrack. Eminem wrote and produced it with Jeff Bass and Luis Resto. The beat is built around a guitar loop and a piano line and a steady, almost rock-shaped four-on-the-floor drum pattern. The song is structured around a single conceit: a battle-rapper given one shot to win, narrated in real-time anxiety. The song spent twelve weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, which is one of the longest runs by any rap song at the top of that chart in the entire decade. It won Best Original Song at the 75th Academy Awards in March 2003. That was the first time a hip-hop track had ever won a competitive Oscar (the Three 6 Mafia would win the second one in 2006). Eminem famously was not at the Oscars to accept the award; he was at home in Detroit, asleep. The song has, in the twenty-three years since, become one of the few rap singles that even people who do not like rap will admit is a great song. You can put on the opening guitar line and the entire room will brace.