(Credits: TIDAL)
Sat 8 November 2025 20:30, UK
When Tony Iommi first started making music, he probably didn’t realise that he had a whole genre at his fingertips.
All the members of Black Sabbath only wanted to make the best rock and roll they could, but when they started to delve into darker riffs and grim subject matter, the entire heavy metal community was practically born on the spot when Iommi’s riff on their namesake track began. But even if they carved out their own path, it’s not like he was going to stray too far from the formula, either.
While Sabbath weren’t as much of a one-trick pony as a band like AC/DC, you could always tell when you were listening to one of their albums even with the revolving door of singers. Ozzy Osbourne may have got them started, and Ronnie James Dio made incredible records with them, but you have to understand that Sabbath isn’t Dio’s or even Osbourne’s band. Iommi was the glue of the entire operation, which probably explains why he could never make a solo career work.
Even when he wanted to hang up the Sabbath name for a while and put out a solo record in the 1980s, the fact that his “solo album” Seventh Star was credited to ‘Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi’ spoke volumes. Not everyone was going to remember his name when the songs started, but if you listen to a track like ‘No Stranger To Love’, he could still create something sinister even when going in a more bluesy direction.
When he did eventually start working on his own record, it only made sense to have a laundry list of his favourite musicians to work with him. 2000s Iommi might read like the heavy metal version of what someone like Santana was doing around the same time, but it’s not like most metalheads were complaining about a record that brought together everyone from Henry Rollins to Dave Grohl to Serj Tankian across every track.
There was even an attempt for Iommi to work with a few rappers later down the line, but he quickly turned down that opportunity, saying, “Two embarrassing things that I didn’t go for was one where they said, ‘This chap wants to do something. Eminem.’ ‘Who the bloody hell is Eminem?’ I didn’t know, and I went, ‘Oh, no.’ And Kid Rock.”
Then again, he could have been leaving a lot of money on the table around that time as well. You have to remember that this was the peak of nu-metal, and while he wasn’t exactly looking to be a trendy new artist anymore, it would have been worth a shot to see what some of the more nuanced nu-metal acts had to offer, whether that’s bringing in Jonathan Davis or even the more theatrical rappers of the day. It might not have worked, but a song with Iommi and MF Doom feels almost too right.
Despite Iommi not liking hip-hop, though, hip-hop certainly loves him. Samples have been around forever in the hip-hop sphere, but listening to everything from Eminem’s ‘Going Through Changes’ to Kanye West’s ‘Hell of a Life’, there’s something about the way that he puts together melodies and riffs that have the same kind of swagger that most rappers would love to put on their beats.
It’s completely up to Iommi whether he starts working with hip-hop artists, but perhaps he’s making up for past sins by staying away. Metal and hip-hop can always work together in the right context, but given how a song like ‘Illusion of Power’ with Ice-T came together with a pretty audible thud, there’s a good chance that one of metal’s high priests doesn’t want to take that kind of risk again.
Related Topics