New Zealand Just Certified Two Eminem Songs That Were Never Singles
Four new Recorded Music NZ plaques landed for Eminem and 50 Cent across three weeks. Two of them are for Eminem Show album cuts that were never released to radio or retail anywhere in the world. Here is what each one is, the exact week it was awarded, and the arithmetic that explains why a 24-year-old deep cut is suddenly Platinum in a country of five million.
By @bradleymines ·
"White America" went Platinum. It has never been sold as a single anywhere on earth. The whole thing is streams, and the maths is public.
Recorded Music NZ updates its certification register every week, and four awards for Eminem and 50 Cent have come through since the middle of August. They have generally been reported as a September batch. Only one of them is.
| Song | Award | Certified |
|---|---|---|
| Eminem, "White America" The Eminem Show, 2002 | Platinum | August 20, 2026 |
| 50 Cent feat. Olivia, "Best Friend" Get Rich or Die Tryin' soundtrack, 2005 | 3x Platinum | August 20, 2026 |
| Eminem, "Square Dance" The Eminem Show, 2002 | Gold | August 27, 2026 |
| Eminem feat. Gwen Stefani, "Kings Never Die" Southpaw soundtrack, 2015 | Gold | September 3, 2026 |
Source: the Recorded Music NZ single certification register, checked September 8, 2026. Three of these landed in August.
The two that should not exist
"White America" and "Square Dance" are both from The Eminem Show, released May 26, 2002. Neither was ever a commercial single. The album's singles were "Without Me," "Cleanin' Out My Closet," "Superman," "Sing for the Moment" and "Business." "White America" got an animated video and a VMA performance and nothing else. "Square Dance" got nothing at all.
Neither has a chart peak on any singles chart in any country, because neither was ever eligible for one. They sit in the discography under the heading for songs that charted or certified without being released.
The animated "White America" video, the only promotional push the song ever got. Now Platinum in New Zealand.
The arithmetic
New Zealand's thresholds are small and its conversion rate is public, which makes this one of the few markets where you can actually reverse-engineer a plaque.
A single goes Gold at 15,000 points and Platinum at 30,000. Paid streams convert at 175 streams to one point. So:
| Award | Points needed | If it were streams alone |
|---|---|---|
| Gold | 15,000 | about 2.6 million NZ streams |
| Platinum | 30,000 | about 5.25 million |
| 3x Platinum | 90,000 | about 15.75 million |
New Zealand's population was about 5.36 million in mid-2026. Platinum for "White America" therefore means roughly one stream for every person in the country, accumulated over 24 years, on a song nobody was ever sold. Recorded Music NZ counts historical sales in the same pot, and any physical album sales from 2002 do not apply to a track award, so the overwhelming bulk of that number is streaming.
Why New Zealand keeps showing up
This site covers RMNZ awards more often than the RIAA ones, and there is a mechanical reason. New Zealand runs certifications automatically, weekly, off chart data, with no requirement for a label to apply. The RIAA requires a label to request an audit and pay for it, which is why a US catalogue can go a decade without moving while the same songs tick up in Auckland every few weeks.
The scale is the trade-off. New Zealand's recorded music market is roughly 0.8 percent the size of the United States, about one hundred and twenty-second. So these are small awards arriving quickly rather than large awards arriving slowly.
Eminem's biggest New Zealand certifications remain "Lose Yourself" and "Without Me," both deep into multi-Platinum. He has played the country twice, both on the Rapture run: Western Springs in Auckland on February 15, 2014 to 52,444 people, and Westpac Stadium in Wellington on March 2, 2019 to 46,474, which broke the venue's single-day record.
"Kings Never Die," from the Southpaw soundtrack in 2015. Gold in New Zealand as of September 3.
The footnote nobody in New Zealand has forgotten
There is one more reason Eminem's name carries weight in that register. In 2014 the New Zealand National Party ran election ads over a production-library track called "Eminem Esque." Eight Mile Style, his publisher, sued. The High Court at Wellington heard it in May 2017 and ruled in October 2017 that the track substantially reproduced "Lose Yourself," awarding NZ$600,000. The Court of Appeal kept the finding of infringement and cut the award to NZ$225,000.
The country that had to pay for using a fake "Lose Yourself" now hands him a plaque roughly once a month. Both of those things are just the machinery working.
Sources. Certification levels and dates are from the Recorded Music NZ single certification register, September 8, 2026. Thresholds and the 175-to-1 stream conversion are from the Official Aotearoa Music Charts rules. Neither "White America" nor "Square Dance" appears as a commercial single in The Eminem Show's release history or Eminem's singles discography. The Eminem Show released May 26, 2002. New Zealand's estimated resident population was 5,357,300 at June 30, 2026 (Stats NZ). Market-size comparison uses IFPI and RIAA 2025 revenue figures. Concert attendances are the reported figures for the Rapture Tour. Eight Mile Style v New Zealand National Party was decided in the High Court at Wellington on October 25, 2017 and reduced on appeal. Both embeds are official Eminem channel uploads.