My best hippety hoppers too:
1.
2Pac - Far from the greatest lyricist, nor did he have the best flow. Why No. 1? Because his presence on the microphone was absolutely immense. He was a good lyricist, had good flow, but it was his subject matter and delivery that put him above the rest. "My hard stare seems to scare..." sums him up; there's an intensity and coldness about him that no one else has. That and his afrocentricity are his defining characteristics. He was also a fantastic poet.
2.
Big L - Like 2Pac, Big L was shot long before his time. Unlike 2Pac he didn't have a lifetime's worth of unreleased tracks so we only have a few albums to judge him on... but you'll find few rappers with better multies: When I move through the ghetto I
drive slow/ I'm quick to
buck a
duck and I don't give a
f*** about
five-o/ A hardcore life I chose to
explore/ there
fore I live
raw and went to
war wit the
law. That's his trademark - spitting lines fast with multi-layered rhyme schemes.
3.
Notorious B.I.G. - Rounding off a top 3 who were all shot dead. Biggie is another who's flow was absolutely incredible and adjusted to a huge variety of bpm. Content wise he wasn't afraid to disgust: "Hail Mary? f*** her, I never knew her/ I'd probably screw her/ and dump her body in the sewer", and as you can see his multies are good too.
4.
NaS - No question, the greatest rapper alive, no matter what Jay-Z says. Incidentally they had a beef that NaS won hands down. His debut, Illmatic, is probably the greates hiphop album ever. And unlike so many he's kept going with great lyrics and honest content, very descriptive; Jay-Z began with an incredible debut and went on to arrogance... NaS is still NaS. What's more his metaphors are sick.
Listen out for his rhyming and wordplay
5.
Big Pun - another dead man, but this one because he got too fat. But he put Latino hiphop on the map. His rhymes were so complex they are probably the hardest to sing along to, they're like toungetwisters. he deliverered them perfectly: "Dead in the middle of Little Italy little did we know that we riddled some middleman who didn't do diddily".
6.
Slick Rick - Born in London, raised in New York. Hit in the late 80's and basically invented story rap; looking back it may be hard to listen to hiphop's great innovators like Slick Rick and Rakim and see why they're so revered - it's because they did what no one else had before them. Flow was beautifully laid back; half his songs were about sex and he didn't hesitate to go into detail. And he had to wear an eyepatch. Legend.
Children's Story
7.
Eminem - No... uh oh... yeah Eminem
is this good. Ignore most of what he did after 8 Mile; but based on his work before (3 albums and a bootleg) plus the 8 mile sountrack, and this guy is mustard. He wasn't the first white rapper and not even the earliest that I would consider for my top 10 (RA the Rugged Man) but he was incredible in his own right. His lyrical skill is awesome; his mind is sick and hence he creates some lasting images: "I walked into a gunfight with a knife to kill you/ and cut you so fast that when your blood spilt it was still blue". Eminem's forte is his metaphors and worldplay, and he is arguably the best in this area. "You're a clown you don't come out with a thang/ you could date a stick of dynamite and wouldn't go out with a bang."
8.
Jay-Z - Best flow out of anyone in hiphop. Doesn't have the humourous putdowns like the others in this list but listen to how well his vocals fit with any of his songs and you'll see what I mean about flow.
9.
Jehst - IMO the best British rapper. Unlike many Americans will say, British rap does not suck. Unlike many Brits say, it does not kick US hiphop's ass either. Jehst is, however, awesome and fully deserves to be on the list; he's able to construct verses with the same rhyming complexity expected of Big L; add some fantastic metaphors and you have a brilliant rapper. It's almost like he's reciting prose rather than lines. "You can see it, how I
tripped and
fell down, and
picked myself up, turned my
self round from the
cliff's edge and staggered home like a
misled pisshead, and put up a fight till my
fists bled."
10.
Immortal Technique - The most political rapper I can think of. Whether you agree with them or not, you have to admire how he 1) backs them up and 2) manages to turn them into good pieces of lyricism. There's a lot more to it than the usual "George Bush sucks" - Technique will tell you exactly why he sucks, and how he will personally lead a revolution till Bush is spattered all over the Oval Office. But perhaps his best song is probably the most grim in hiphop history... a story (post Slick Rick of course) about a boy who wants to get involved with the raw guys in his projects.. ending in tragedy in the same way as Children's Story.
Dance With The Devil[/b]
