Eminem has been voted the greatest rapper alive by fans and readers of VIBE Magazine and its website.

Although Em hasn't released a full solo album since 2004's Encore [click to read], his fan base has shown that it remains tremendously loyal.

Vibe broke the competition down tournament style, placing a slew of emcees into four brackets: the Notorious BIG bracket, the 2Pac bracket, the Pimp C bracket, and the Big Punisher bracket. The number one seeds in each bracket were, respectively, Jay-Z, Eminem, Lil Wayne and Andre 3000.

After voting each week from July 21 to August 4, the final were decided. Eminem and Jay-Z made it to the final four, as expected. Somewhat unexpected was Game's defeat of Andre 3000 in order to make it to the semifinals, and Ludacris' defeat of Lil Wayne in order to claim the same spot.

Eminem, who had beaten Nas by a slim margin to claim a final four spot, and Jay-Z made short work of Ludacris and Game, respectively. The two legends faced off in votes, and after over 920,000 votes, Em beat out Hov, retaining 61 percent of the votes to Hov's 39 percent.

"It’s obviously an honor to have won the fans' support by being voted the Best Rapper Alive,” said Eminem to the fans on Vibe.com. “I don't think that there is any one rapper that is simply the best though.  Everyone who was in consideration and many others are the best at certain things, and at what they do.  But since VIBE's offering the distinction, hell yeah I'll accept!"