The Sneaker Eminem Kept Hidden For Twenty Years Is Finally Going Public

A blue prototype Eminem pulled off a Nike shelf in 2005 is becoming a real retail rel, and the narrative behind it explains why collectors have chased it for two decades.

The story of the Air Jordan 4 “Encore” starts inside Nike’s own build, not a design studio built for it. Eminem was visiting headquarters and came across a deep blue sample built for Undefeated, a colorway with a BlackBerry-style shine that had nothing to do with him yet. He liked it enough to ask for it. Nike agreed, and the shoe was reworked around his fifth studio album, Encore, rel that same year through Shady Records. Undefeated eventual went a different direction with their own version of the four, a flight jacket build that didn’t retro until August 2025. Eminem’s blue pair stayed off the market entirely, made only for people close to him.

The design itself is not radical by Jordan Brand standards. It uses the same molded mesh side panels and visible heel Air that Tinker Hatfield drew up in 1989, the second sil he built for the line. What makes the “Encore” different is entirely in the color story and the name stitched into the tongue, small details that turned a friends and family gift into one of the most searched for sneakers in hip hop.

Close-up of blue Air Jordan 4 sneaker featuring red Jumpman branding and ENCORE embroidery on the gray heel tabs.

Only fifty pairs of the original “Encore” were made in 2005, handed out to people in Eminem’s circle rather than sold. That would have been the end of it, except a second small run followed in 2017. Twenty three more pairs were produced to mark the Revival album cycle, and one of them went up for a charity campaign through StockX, with proceeds directed to the Marshall Mathers Foundation, the organization Eminem started in 2002 to fund youth programs in and around Detroit. Between both runs, seventy three pairs exist. A single original example later sold at Sotheby’s for just over fifty thousand dollars, and resale listings have pushed individual pairs even higher since.

That history is part of why the “Encore” sits near the top of Air Jordan collide lore. It was never designed as a commercial product, so every appear of it, from an auction listing to a grainy photo on a collector’s forum, has functioned as proof of something most shoe fans assume they would never be able to buy.

build

The version arriving under style code JJ3098-400 changes that. According to Jordan Brand’s own release calendar, the shoe is set to land May 15, 2027 at select retailers and on SNKRS for $230. The build keeps the original’s Blue Ribbon nubuck upper and Game Purple hits on the Jumpman branding, with Stealth and Black covering the outsole and translucent detail on the wing eyelets, the small plastic piece that lets wearers adjust the lacing. “Eminem” is placed on the interior of the tongue rather than anywhere view from the outside, the same understated approach the original friends and family pairs used.

One detail is still unconfirmed. The 2005 original carried a Jumpman on the heel, but recent Jordan 4 retros have occasionally swapped that for a Nike Air mark instead, and it is not yet known which version Jordan Brand will use for this release. Regional availability outside the United States has also not been detailed yet, and neither has whether the release will run through SNKRS as a limited draw or sit as a standard restock item once it lands at retailers.

The timing is not incidental either. Jordan Brand’s 2027 calendar already leans on deep cuts, pair this rel alongside other friends and family pieces getting pulled out of the archive. For a sil as heavily retro as the four, a story this specific, tied to one artist noticing one sample in one hallway, is what separates it from another routine colorway drop.

fin

A $230 retail tag looks almost strange next to a shoe that has changed hands for five figures. That gap is the real story here. Jordan Brand has spent the last several years pulling rare friends and family pairs, from Eminem’s own Carhartt-backed AJ4 charity run to other locked away collides, into wider release, and each time the reaction splits the same way: longtime collectors who spent years chasing an unattainable grail see a shoe they own lose some of its mystique, while a much larger group of buyers gets a first real shot at wearing a piece of that chore. The “Encore” retro does not undo the rare of the original fifty and twenty three pairs, since those remain the only true originals and will keep commanding auction prices. What it does is put the design itself, the hue nar that started with Eminem noticing a sample on a shelf, into circulation for people who were never going to bid at Sotheby’s in the first place.