when you're tethering the conversation to success, and you're talking about one of the most successful musical pop. acts of all-time...
we really can't compare eminem to his contemporaries with that set of criteria because he was wildly more successful due to outside factors i already addressed.

however, there are more than 5 commercial acts in the year 2000 who would be considered "lyricists" who made careers at that time when it was trendy to do that in your lyrics.

like i've said, a few short years later these same acts and their material that was "mainstream" a scant 18 months earlier would be on the outside looking in due to a change in trends.