20 Years Later, Eminem's Friends-and-Family Air Jordan 4 "Encore" May Finally Drop — With Red Swapped for Purple

Back in 2005, Nike produced just 50 pairs of the Air Jordan 4 "Encore" — blue suede uppers paired with black tech material, finished off with red accents on the heel and tongue — to commemorate Eminem's album *Encore*. None of those 50 pairs ever hit shelves; they went straight to the rapper's inner circle. Two decades later, the shoe exists mostly as sneaker-collector lore and a line item in Sotheby's auction records.

According to sources including @zsneakerheadz and Sneaker Files, this pair is finally headed for a general release — with a twist on the colorway. The original red details are reportedly being swapped out entirely for purple, including the Jumpman logo on the heel and tongue, the subtle "Eminem" text on the back of the tongue, and the "Encore" lettering on the interior heel. If the reports hold up, the retail version will look nearly identical to the original but carry a different accent color entirely.

"Encore" isn't the only time Eminem's crossed paths with the Air Jordan 4. The same silhouette later got a run of 23 pairs made for his album *Revival*, again strictly friends-and-family. Then in 2015, Eminem teamed up with fellow Detroit brand Carhartt on another Air Jordan 4 — once more an extremely limited friends-and-family drop, with only a handful of pairs ever surfacing through charity auctions. In short, nearly every time this shoe has appeared, it's come with an asterisk: virtually impossible to actually buy.

Context matters here too. Over the past couple of years, Nike has been steadily unlocking shoes that once lived only in its archives — the Wu-Tang Clan x Nike Dunk High dropped publicly in 2024, followed by Undefeated's Air Jordan 4 in 2025. If Eminem's "Encore" follows the same path, it would mark another chapter in what looks like a systematic reopening of Nike's long-dormant friends-and-family vault.

The rumored retail colorway is listed as Blue Ribbon/Game Purple/Stealth/Black, style code JJ3098-400, priced at $230, with a release date pointing to May 15. That said, all of this currently comes from industry insiders and enthusiast accounts — Nike and Jordan Brand have not officially confirmed any details, and reports differ on the exact release year. The actual launch timing remains to be confirmed by Nike.