Eminem wins artist of the year at YouTube Awards

Eminem won the award for artist of the year at the first ever YouTube Music Awards in New York on Sunday.

The rapper also performed his song ‘Rap God’ with Denaun Porter, aka Hype Man.

Eminem rapped the track against an all-white backdrop in black and white on the live 90-minute webcast of the award show.

The song is the third single from Eminem’s eighth studio album entitled The Marshall Mathers LP 2.

His performance ended with him looking breathless in front of screaming and excited fans.

“I just wanna say real quick thanks to all the fans, everyone who voted,” he said. “To YouTube, I’m out, peace!”

Hip-hop duo Macklemore and Ryan Lewis were among the winners at the first-ever YouTube music awards.

The ceremony, which was streamed live on YouTube, also featured top artists including Lady Gaga.

It was co-hosted by actor Jason Schwartzman and performance artist Reggie Watts, who were only given a list of bullet points about the awards by creative director Spike Jonze.

The aim was to make the event as spontaneous as possible and differentiate it from other award ceremonies.

“There were no lines and nothing scripted and we had no idea what was going to happen next,” Schwartzman declared afterwards.

Performances from around the world, including in London, Moscow, Seoul and Rio, were streamed live into the ceremony.

Eminem won the Artist of the Year award, while Video of the Year went to Girls’ Generation for their song I Got A Boy.

Breakthrough of the Year was awarded to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, whose songs include the gay rights anthem Same Love.

Walk off the Earth, along with KRNFX, lifted the Phenomenon Award for their version of Taylor Swift’s I Knew You Were Trouble, while the Innovation Prize went to YouTube user DeStorm for See Me Standing.