The List: Best Rappers of All-Time - Part 1 (#12 - #7)

I've decided to jack a format from ESPN's Page 2, and create my own series called "The List". I'm also going to create a new category for these entries. Yeah, that's right, I'm jacking the name, too. It's not like it's such an original name.

There will be no limit or set number of entries on each list. It won't necessarily be a top 10, or top 5, or whatever. Sometimes there will be set criteria, sometimes not. There will always be explanations, though.

This time around, I'm ranking the best rappers of all time. When I say "rapper", I do not mean hip-hop artists (Spearhead, Nelly etc). Nor do I mean the best producers (Dr, Dre, Large Professor, etc), nor do I mean the rap artist that puts out the best overall songs. When I say rapper, I mean those who display the highest degree of skill and talent behind the microphone while rhyming (not singing).

Why? Because I said so. As I've gone over ad nauseam in the past, rap takes a lot more skill and talent than the average American music fan gives it credit for. As mentioned before, it's a lot easier to sing a rock or pop song than it is to deliver even the simplest rap song without fucking up. I always cringe when someone tries to rap at a karaoke bar, because they almost inevitably butcher the song.

Each will be graded in four categories, and scored 1-10 in each:

Rhyme Skills: This refers to the complexity level of the rapper's demonstrated ability to create effective and original rhyming patterns with his lyrics.

Lyrics: This is a quality measure. In other words, what does this rapper have to say? What do they talk about, and how effective are they in conveying their ideas in a unique way?

Voice: If you were to take away the music and the beat, how would the rapper sound? Would you want to listen to them...or turn on a power drill and drive it into your temple? Can they hold it down a capella, and do they generate a rich vocal tone that transcends the beat?

Flow: How well do they mesh their rhyming styles with different beats? Do they always end up sounding the same over every beat, or can they change up their flow depending on the song around the lyrics? How versatile are they with tempo? How predictable/unpredictable are they when flowing to a given beat?

Remember: every rapper on my list could easily be considered one of the best of all time, so everyone will score high (everyone's a winner here). Based on these criteria, here is my list of the best rappers of all time:

12. Ice Cube

• Rhyme Skills: 7
• Lyrics: 10
• Voice: 7
• Flow: 7

Cube is easily the best rapper to come out of the legendary West-Coast pioneers N.W.A. [The D.O.C. had by far the best technical ability, and might have made this list if his career hadn't been tragically cut short by a car accident that damaged his voice.] Cube's biggest asset is his ability to be meaningful; his lyrics are political just as often as they are gangsta. He has solid rhyme skills, voice and flow. He's not the most flexible rapper in my list, but he's definitely worthy of a spot at the "bottom."

Favorite comedical lines: "It's a great day for genocide...[What's that?] /That's the day all the niggas died!"
"You should hear how she sounds with a cock in her/boots get knocked from here to Czechoslovakia."

11. Dres

• Rhyme Skills: 9
• Lyrics: 6
• Voice: 8
• Flow: 10

Dres is one of the most underappreciated rappers ever. His one-rapper-one-DJ group (Black Sheep) released an amazing debut album (A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing); most people know them from the song "The Choice Is Yours" and the "Engine, Engine, Number 9..." verse. His flow is sick. His rhyme skills? Extraordinary.

The main thing holding Dres back is that Black Sheep was all about fun and games and avoided writing songs about significant topics. Thus, his lyrics get a bit vacuous at times. Also, he doesn't have the most powerful voice in the countdown. But he's right up there, and could objectively be ranked even higher. The fact that he made the list essentially on the basis of one album (Non-Fiction was a commercial and critical flop that lead to Black Sheep's breakup) underscores just how spectacular his work was on that single album.

Favorite lines: "Nif-ti-ly/We can make it hip-to-be/what we are, 'cause what-we-be/be the ep-i-to-me/Doo, da, dippty."

10. Kool Moe Dee

• Rhyme Skills: 10
• Lyrics: 9
• Voice: 10
• Flow: 6

Kool Moe Dee is the oldest-school MC in my countdown. One of rap's pioneers, he was a member of one of the very first rap crews (Treacherous Three). He might be best known for a feud with LL Cool J, but he should be best-remembered for being the first truly intelligence-focused mainstream rapper -- that is, for as much as rap was in the mainstream back in the early to mid '80's.

How Ya Like Me Now is Kool Moe Dee's best-known album; Will Smith used Moe Dee's unforgettable voice for the vocal hook in Smith's horrible song (and movie) "Wild Wild West." His rhyme skills are on full display in songs like "I Go To Work" and "Rise N' Shine." Unfortunately, like many rap artists of his time, he was unable to keep up with the sweeping changes brought about by slick production, instrumentation and the like. And for as much as Kool Moe Dee's voice was distinct and powerful, his flow wasn't versatile enough to give his songs the variety they sometimes demanded. Part of this limitation may have been due to shitty, generic James-Brown-sampled beats. Anyway, all I can go on is what I hear -- so my critique of his weakness holds up relative to many of the rappers ahead of him in the countdown. Rappers such as...


9. Jay-Z

• Rhyme Skills: 9
• Lyrics: 8
• Voice: 9
• Flow: 9
  

There's a simple reason why Jay-Z is this high in the countdown, and just below the world's greatest MCs: though he isn't the very best in any of my categories, he is one of the most solid all-around rappers ever to pick up a mic. Unlike everyone else mentioned so far, Jay-Z has no glaring weaknesses.

He has the uncanny ability to deliver the perfect style and flow, no matter what beat is on tap. This talent is showcased most effectively on The Black Album, where he raps to an old-school Beastie-Boys-style beat ("99 Problems"), a pseudo-reggae jumping beat ("Lucifer"), an electro-future beat ("Dirt Off Your Shoulders") and a Neptunes '70's homage ("Allure"). And let's not forget his side project with Linkin Park, where he raps very comfortably to metal. He proved he could drop complicated rhyme schemes and change his flow in his spectacular debut Reasonable Doubt. Though he got poppier over the years, The Black Album proved he still flex as much ability as any rapper out there. He may be self-centered and arrogant, and even his most meaningful lyrics reflect that. But when he says "And if I ain't better than Big[gie], then I'm the closest one," he's right.

Favorite Lines: "Ya crazy, think a little-bit of rhymes can play me? I'm from Marcy, I'm varsity, chump, you're JV!"

"Truthfully
I wanna rhyme like Common Sense
(But i did five Mil)
I ain't been rhymin like Common since
When your sense got that much in common
And you been hustlin since
Your inception
Fuck perception
Go with what makes sense
Since
I know what i'm up against
We as rappers must decide what's most impor-tant."


8. 2Pac

• Rhyme Skills: 9
• Lyrics: 10
• Voice: 8.5
• Flow: 7

I know, I know. So many people are going to skewer me for rating Pac this low. They'll say, "2Pac is the greatest MC ever!" They might be right. But let me explain.

Remember, this isn't about the greatest rapper, it's about the person who is the best rapper -- the best at what they do, not the one that is held in the highest regard by the largest number of people -- or the one with the most memorable songs. Yes, Pac changed the rap game forever, for better or worse. Yes, his larger-than-life persona, charisma and acting ability transcended the music he made. Yes, his death and subsequent musical success from beyond the grave is one of the most important phenomena in the history of music.

But for the purpose of this countdown, none of that matters.

What matters is that Tupac did indeed have a glaring weakness, and another not-so-strong category. His flow, while wicked, gets monotonous over the course of an entire album. He was still developing as an artist when he was killed, so there's no telling what he might have become if he'd been able to grow. Regardless, he sounded almost exactly the same in too many of his songs for me to rank him higher.

Though Pac's voice naturally meshed well with almost any beat (despite his inability to change up his flow more often), his voice doesn't strike me as one I'd enjoy listening to sans music. That's why I took him down in this category. In fact, I think Jay-Z probably sounds better a capella than Pac does. So does Kool Moe Dee. It wouldn't be a knock on Pac to say that Dre's production played a large role in his success story (as it has with many others).

Looking at my scores for 2Pac, you may be wondering: how did he end up getting ranked even this high? Well, I can't go any higher than 10 in my scores. But If I could, I'd give Pac a 20 for his lyrics. he had a way of phrasing things that the common man identified with. He also rapped about a huge breadth of topics -- proably even more so than some of the rappers I put ahead of him. Listeners bonded to Tupac's message like they bonded with no other rapper's stories before or since.

The thing is, if someone told me that I had to listen to a random sample of 20 songs in a row by any given artist in this countdown, I'd choose almost any of them before I'd choose Tupac because of my boredom with his flow. Despite acknowledging the truth of everything positive I wrote about him at the beginning of this entry, I can still come up with at least 7 MCs who rap better than he does. And the people who think I'm a bit loony for this ranking will hate me even more once they see some of the people I ranked higher than him...and my next entry...


7. Notorious B.I.G.

• Rhyme Skills: 10
• Lyrics: 6
• Voice: 10
• Flow: 10

Biggie, Biggie, Biggie. You had one of the best voices -- if not the best voice -- ever. The ability to drop a million different rhyme schemes, and express ideas in ways I'd never heard before. The flow to rap like Bone Thugs, Run-D.M.C. or anyone else you felt like matching styles with.

But, like Tupac, you also had one major flaw: your lyrics. And in your case, that flaw is greater than Tupac's monotony. Man, if only you'd ever dropped a science rap or a rap about something greater than yourself. If only you'd occasionally gotten political, or dropped some knowledge or upliftment. But you never did. Maybe you would have one day...but of course, we'll never know.

All that's in your library is bitches, money, gangsta shit and how cool you and your friends are. Sadly, that's as much a part of your legacy as anything else.

And only your supremacy in the other three categories compels me to rank you higher than 2Pac and Jay-Z in this countdown.


Six down, and six more rappers to go. Tune in for Part II...

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