US rapper Eminem has said fellow hip-hop stars Lil’ Wayne and T.I. have helped resurrect the genre following a barren spell.

Eminem said be believed hip-hop had gone “downhill” since his studio album was released in 2004.

But the rapper, who is due to release his latest effort, ‘Relapse’, next month, said the "craft" was once again "getting cared about".

“I stayed up on the music, and obviously I watch TV and saw what was going on," Eminem told XX Magazine about his break from music.

"And without naming any names, it just felt like hip-hop was going downhill. And it seemed like kinda fast.

“You know, in them three years, it was like everybody just cares about the hook and the beat; nobody really cares about substance.”

Eminem singled out T.I. and Lil’ Wayne’s latest efforts, ‘Paper Trail’ and ‘Tha Carter III’, as examples that “things are looking a lot better now”.

He added: “You can appreciate Lil Wayne using different words to rhyme and actually rhyming words that you know.

“Or T.I., where you hear shit and you're like, 'Whoa, ah, I wish I would have thought of that!' You know what I mean? Or you hear all the compound-syllable rhyming and all that.

“It just seems like now the craft is getting cared about more."

Eminem’s ‘Relapse’ is released on May 18 and preceded by the single ‘We Made You’, which is out now.

(by Jason Gregory)