[Pride male]

I dont see any mention of T.I. Or even Ja rule who was a game changer. What about DMX? Also like Rick Ross.

As far as Eminem, i really cant bump his earlier shit. I think he is overrated and without Dre, he would be stuck in the underground.

[JimBobsCooters]

This is hard to do, do you include beat selection/production as a skill for the rapper or do you go just purely on lyrical ability and skills flowing. There's a ton of guys that I love the way they rap but they consistently choose terrible beats to do it over and thus I don't enjoy their tracks often at all, there are a ton of guys who couldn't hold the mic to a lot of other guys that have ridden top notch beats to the top.

Personally I've decided to include that production and beat selection as part of being the rapper, if you rhyme over terrible beats then I'm not listening to what you have to say because I'm not going to put your track on my playlist...

Individuals

1. Dr Dre - The above disclaimer pretty much opens this up. He's not a top 50 lyricist but I've always enjoyed his voice and the way he flows and he is basically the polar opposite of someone like Kendrick Lamar where I go in expecting the beat to ruin the song. He owns my favourite track of all time which is the kicker and has two of my top 50 (and probably 20) albums.

2. Eminem - He's fallen off hard on his last couple of albums but the production he rode in his prime and his skills were insane.

3. Nas - I'm one of the rare people who doesn't really like Illmatic that much but Stillmatic is one of my favourite albums and God's Son was also top notch for mine. Has continued to have a few decent tracks well past his prime.

4. Schoolboy Q - He's a new one but his Oxymoron is one of my all time favourite albums with basically zero bad tracks (for me this is super rare) and several of my all time favourite tracks.

5. Xzibit - He hasn't done anything in a while but his first 4 albums are as good as anyone. His post rap career has become kind of laughable I guess but can't blame the man for having fun and chasing a dollar!

Notables absentees:

Tupac - I don't like most of his production, basically every track of his that I enjoy has the "Produced by Dr Dre" thing going for it, he's one of those weird ones that I've never really gotten I guess.
Biggie - He's one I really didn't like the beats for almost any of his tracks (Juicy a notable exception), almost all of the tracks of his in my rotation are remixes or verses thrown onto other artists tracks. I love him lyrically and vocally but I just never enjoyed the production style he worked with.
Jay-Z - Similar to Biggie with a few more exceptions, there is basically 1 or 2 songs on each of his albums that I like and the rest I dislike. He's an elite cameo artist though.
Kanye - Same as Jay-Z only with less tracks I liked and nowhere.
Ludacris - He probably has the strongest cameo feature list of anyone and he was really close to making the list but ultimately most of his own albums aren't very good, imo.
Skepta/Wiley - I didn't include the Grime artists in the list at all but if you bring them into the criteria then both of them probably make my top 5.
Drake - Come at me... Maybe it's just how prolific he is but I enjoy like 2-3 tracks an album of his and it stacks up.
Lil Wayne - Same as Drake basically.
50 Cent/Lloyd Banks - Have included them in the groups with G-Unit, perhaps unfairly.
Busta Rhymes - Probably the only guy who rivals Ludacris on features, ultimately he's another victim of a ton of terrible production. His album with Dre is in my top 10 though, one of the few albums where I liked almost every track.

Groups

1. Mobb Deep - They have two of my top 10 tracks and another half dozen that are in my regular rotation.
2. G-Unit - This era of production was pretty much my favourite era. Lumping the group in here just made it easier.
3. EPMD - Really strong group with a ton of awesome tracks. I also really like Sermon as a solo artist but not putting guys on both lists (he's not that good anyway!).
4. Outkast - There last couple of efforts were absolute trash (the dual album onwards basically) but there earlier stuff is the funnest stuff in hip hop for mine.
5. A Tribe Called Quest - This was a tough, tough call. They were so fun though and loved the funk.

Notable Absentees:

Wu-Tang - Just, ultimately they're victims of me liking almost all their stuff but not truly loving any of it.
Cunninglynguists - Really enjoy their stuff and style, not prolific enough for this list though.
Pete Rock & CL Smooth - Again not prolific enough, couple of my all time favourites on their catalog though.
De La Soul - Same as Wu-Tang really.

[Pride male]

^Yeah, I thought Illmatic is overrated.

[Goldin Boy]

(08-12-2018 10:01 AM)Pride male Wrote:  

I dont see any mention of T.I. Or even Ja rule who was a game changer. What about DMX? Also like Rick Ross.

As far as Eminem, i really cant bump his earlier shit. I think he is overrated and without Dre, he would be stuck in the underground.

T.I. was always slightly above average, very consistent(he's never fallen off) but he doesn't have a classic album and never really innovated in anyway(he only raps about the same stuff over different beats). To me he's the southern equivalent of Fabulous: He stays in his lane, good at what he does, but he's thematically limited which makes me question his creativity/lyricism.

Plus you can never be in anyone's Top 5 Dead or Alive after you rap over that Crystal Waters song "Gypsy Woman", He went from my top 20 to top 50 after that song dropped.

Ja did change the game, not for the better. He inspired a generation to be pussy and sing even when you can't hold a note. His commercial success was based off selling-out(singing about beta stuff). He was forerunner for Drake, future, Desiigner, and legion of other rappers who do that melodic singing shit with/without autotune.



You can't be Top 5 when you're crooning with a voice that sounds like cross between the Cookie Monster and Prince Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z.

[redpillage]

Boosy Badass
Lil' Jon
Mac Miller
Yelawolf
Juicy J
Schoolboy Q
Yo Gotti
G-Eazy
Three 6 Mafia!!!
Cypress Hill
Big Shaq
Young Buck

Yeah a bit all over the place but I love crunk and dirty South beats.

[JimBobsCooters]

(08-12-2018 11:17 AM)redpillage Wrote:  

Boosy Badass
Lil' Jon
Mac Miller
Yelawolf
Juicy J
Schoolboy Q
Yo Gotti
G-Eazy
Three 6 Mafia!!!
Cypress Hill
Big Shaq
Young Buck

Yeah a bit all over the place but I love crunk and dirty South beats.

Shiiit totally forgot Cypress Hill! There were a few groups I reckon I've forgotten as was just struggling to think but that's a notable one!

[ShotgunUppercuts]

Dj muggs of chypress hill dropped a few days ago

[JimBobsCooters]

(08-12-2018 11:45 AM)ShotgunUppercuts Wrote:  

Dj muggs of chypress hill dropped a few days ago

Is it bad that I took that to mean he died and had to do a google. Most of the time my childhood rappers get mentioned these days it's unfortunately because they passed away.

Also realised I forgot to mention Snoop above, he's probably ahead of Xzibit on total body of work and even probably on peak, kind of shows how irrelevant he's unfortunately become lately that I didn't even think of him when mentioning basically every artist he's affiliated with. Talib and Kendrick are in the "bad beats" ruin them for me. DMX was great but fell off really hard.

Also after reading through the thread (was trying to avoid influence when doing my list, The Roots are another I missed, though I think they'd be in my notable absentees list rather than top 5. Gangstarr also deserve a mention and I didn't include them either.

[Mage]

N English/American rap has never appealed much to me:

I know almost no one here will appreciate it in this English speaking forum it but my favorite rap is in Russian. Posting it just so that you would know there is such a thing and it is hugely popular right now. There is a whole other world out there.

The uniqueness of Russian rap is that it is all very intellectual. That combined with the quadrillions of ways you can curse and insult someone in Russian (unlike English that has just a few words for that) makes it for something very unique.

Here are some of my favorite songs, very different in style and tone:

[Mage]

A cool Russian parody of the trendy American song by Childish Gambino as a bonus:

[JimBobsCooters]

Rap is actually massive in Russia, other than the old sad sounding music that sounds like some weird frankenstein blend of the 70s/80s/90s and the random remixes of all the club songs it's basically the mainstream music. Some of the biggest artists are the hip hop guys.

Agree it's not bad at all.

[2 Cool 4 U]

I mostly listen to Beastie Boys and Run-DMC