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Top 5 Hip-Hop Emcees · Hip-Hop Now Podcast

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  Whatever, y'all. I am your host Vegas and this it's Hip Hop Now
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  podcast say podcast specifically designed to keep you caught up on all things hip hop
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  music and culture that happened throughout the week. Big shout out to the supporters
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  to support the podcast, click the link in the description of this episode.
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  We are headed in the direction of five hundred subscribers of this podcast, So
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  if you watch frequently or you watch this particular episode and you like it,
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  not only hit the life button, but become a subscriber to stay locked in
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  to weekly hip hop content. Now, if you haven't already check out my
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  Top five albums of all time. Today, as an MC, we're going
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  to talk about my top five mcs of all time, not the top five
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  m seas of all time, because honestly, I'm I'm just not the guy
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  for that. I could be a part of a group and make a vote,
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  but I can't stick to a top five. I could barely stick to
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  this top five, Okay, but my reasons, my criteria have nothing to
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  do with SI, have nothing to do where you're from. You know,
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  yes, it may influence the way you're from part yes it may influence in
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  some ways my top five, But at the same time, for me,
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  it doesn't. I own a lot of music, and it's really about what
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  connects with you. Just to a perfect example for those who like to use
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  that argument quite often and feel like that's what everybody does. When I hear
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  the word Brooklyn, I don't automatically like I don't own Mano's entire collection,
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  and Maino's not only from Brooklyn, but he grew up a couple of blocks
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  away from me, not that far closer to where I live and where Biggie
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  is, right, So hearing where I'm from is not a thing for me.
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  I've been hearing that since the beginning of hip hop. I'm from New
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  York City, Okay. But why these are my top five is just because
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  they are artists who, no matter whack, hot, dope, so and
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  so, I will always check for their music because they have been probably the
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  top five artists to satisfy me as a fan. Right Like, I'm almost
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  not disappointed in a lot of ways, I'm almost on whack albums. I'm
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  almost looking to make sure I understand a lot of artists don't get that,
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  and that's why these are my top five. And see, so it's not
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  only the catalog, the output, how dope they are, it's also what
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  they've done and its impact on me that's made me a lawyer fan throughout the
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  years. So that being said, no special order, but we're gonna start
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  out with my favorite at the top. It's a notorious b I T.
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  Biggie Smalls. Yeah, Brooklyn what out? But nah. I think the
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  thing that resonated with me the big was first hearing his voice. He had
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  a certain type of energy that was powerful, like when I first heard him
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  on Heavy D's Blue Funk album, a song called a Bunch of Nickads.
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  I'm sorry if you don't like hearing that word, but you know, some
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  of these guys need to naming the albums that this Every D named this album
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  man, I mean, it's a man, but I just remember I just
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  like the way he rhymed over the b And not too long after that,
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  I heard his single off the Who's the maand soundtrack, and I actually have
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  the Who's the Man soundtrack back here. I don't see it quick enough to
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  grab it. Everything gupunk gets hit also. But I just remember hearing this
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  song off the Who's the Man soundtrack called party and Bulls Right, and I
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  was like, Wow, why has why no one's ever made a record like
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  this for like about a house party in the hood and that honestly, I'm
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  gonna just keep it abuve with y'all. I might have been at two house
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  parties in the hood ever, because I was at the point where I'm like,
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  y'o, somebody always get shot. And I don't mean like on some
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  you know, there's always beef. Like sometimes gun just go off and somebody
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  get hit because you're in there, you know what I'm saying. So I
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  always used to be like, yeah, it's kind of reckless. I don't
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  know, man, It's like I need I gotta ways. I get enough
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  to go to the club, so I know at least everybody get checked.
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  I don't want to be dancing and catch a straight. But you hear about
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  it all the time, you know, it's the thing. And Biggie made
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  a song about it, and I just remember him just's sounding in a way
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  that was just so powerful and prior to him releasing his debut Ready to Die.
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  There was the best the Biggie mixtape put together or curated by DJ miss
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  a C Recipes, DJ missus C and Victory's Bid. But I remember like
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  everybody had that mixtape, like everybody, and if you didn't, somebody told
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  you about it. And I remember when I heard the intro, the freestyle
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  that opens that tape up, it was like, you know how when you
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  hear it, start to hear bits and pieces from a dudes. That's a
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  dude that new not a record, but you know, a freestyle here,
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  a soundtrack song there, a feature back then, you know with the Blue
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  Funk Joint, a feature on an album you're listening to, and you start
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  getting bread crumbs from this person and you're like, Yo, that dude,
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  that dude's kind of nice, Like I hope he come out with an actual
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  album, Like when is that dropping? And we didn't have the kind of
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  information and access we have now to kind of, you know, at least
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  get a heads up of when an album's coming, or at least follow the
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  artists directly, like on a Instagram and see what they're doing. You just
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  had to wait some more information came out or a new record hit the radio,
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  and I remember listening to that mixtape and it was features he did that
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  I didn't even know existed. Somebody had heard, like with Mary J.
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  Blige and all of that, and a lot of songs he did, like
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  with Luke and s got X, and I was just like, Yo,
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  man, this dude is dope. He kind of shocked rapper also because don't
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  get a twisted Biggie Smalls was like a shock wrapper. He used to say
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  some crazy ish back then, and I just remember like, man, this
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  dude is dope. And he finally releases an album, I'm I'm getting that
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  joint because he's I'm sold on him. And I remember when Ready to Die
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  came out and it was just everything I imagined it would be better. And
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  I think what really got me hyped was when I heard Unbelievable, like I
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  had to if I think I either asked my moms for money to get that
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  or she had gave me money previously. And I literally saved it knowing when
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  that joint come out, I'm going to get it. And I remember she
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  took me to Beech Street. You know, yeah, those who know no
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  in Brooklyn. But I used to get all my music. I got all
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  these tapes from and I was like, you know, I was only there
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  to get that, and I was so hyped I was reading it. I
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  wasn't even I didn't have a walk in on me at the time, so
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  I couldn't listen. All I could do was just read everything before I got
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  home to listen to it. And for me, it just cemented, you
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  know, Big as one of my favorites at the time, one of my
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  favorites now obviously, you know, being from Brooklyn, he reminded me a
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  lot of most of people I knew from Brooklyn. So there was that regional
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  factor that played into it. Not necessarily a bias, but we're not talking
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  about somebody who's whacking and we're like him. It's a bias when you call
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  somebody the greatest and most people do not even know or like that person.
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  It's another thing when it's more because you're from the same region and you can
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  relate specifically to the blocks this person talking about, to the things he says
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  right, like when he say do right, not rapping Duke that was that
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  guy's name, but when he said the phrase duke, that's what we said
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  back then in Brooklyn, So it was kind of like he was just so
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  authentically Brooklyn, and he was great at storytelling, and he had the hardcore
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  gainst the side of it, and then and then he was making party records
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  at the same time. He was just a total package to me at that
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  time. And by the time, you know, we had heard remixes and
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  him with Junior Mafia and him featured on jay z album and stuff like that,
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  and then Life After Death, I already knew. I was like,
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  Yo, Big is just he's my favorite rapping. He just doesn't really disappoint
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  I've never really heard a new biggie verse and was disappointed. And I think
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  really what really capped it off after he passed is just listening to and shout
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  out to Tracy Lee, listening to keep your Hands High with Tracy Lee,
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  off of Tracy Lee's album debut album Many Faces, and the things that Big
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  was saying, I got a new mouth to feed. I'm through South for
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  keys, y'all pick seeds as your weed. I watched Cowis Bleed Mother Please,
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  It's my block and my rock from hip Hops, the one twos and
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  you Don't Stop Me and the lance to Kim and C's advance for ten bricks
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  four pounds of week from Branton twelve year mans like, well, he ain't
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  say twelve year mantes, but whatever, I was like, Yo, my
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  man was getting better, which I couldn't even think he would get better than
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  what he already was. So that's why he's my number one, my favorite
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  MC of all time for a number of reasons. Of reasons, and probably
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  the biggest is the variety that he brought with his lyrics and his music,
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  because it plays into my musical tapes. You know, I love variety music.
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  I listened to all of it. I listened to jazz, rock,
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  whatever. As long as I think it's dope, I'll listen to it.
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  So they have it. Follow after that is the guy I considered to be
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  the goat in hip hop. I did a whole episode explaining it. I'm
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  not gonna explain it right now, but that is LL cool j mL cool
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  J needs to get flowers upon flowers upon flowers upon floers. What I liked
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  about l L was the first time I physically saw him more. I won't
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  say this was the first time because that might not be true, but when
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  I knew, I really, really, really liked l l It was the
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  bigger and depth of album, and it was his appearance in Crush Froes,
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  right, Like I liked him when I heard Radio and all that, you
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  know, I thought he was dope. But those were those two specific albums,
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  and like I'm Bad video specific and Chris Groop is when I got to
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  look at him, and he was, you know, and I was younger,
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  so he was young, and not that Run wasn't young. I liked
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  Run, but he felt Run always felt like a generation before me, like
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  kind of like my brother's generation, right, and LL felt like even though
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  Ill wasn't my generation, because my generation is the nineties. But at that
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  time I was so locking the hip hop. Seeing a younger dude, he's
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  younger than them doing it in the way he was doing it was crazy and
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  no pun intended doing it. And as we got to as I started to
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  get a little bit older, and we had albums like Mama said Knock You
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  Out, where he's displaying all this skill and all these concepts and the videos
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  are dope. The beat Molly mal is doing crazy with the beats. And
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  even when he had whack albums, he had strong singles like Jingling Baby remix,
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  you know what I'm saying, which you know came before and even again,
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  even though L would release an album that was like Yo as a classic
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  and then maybe have an album that wasn't as good, he always had super
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  iconic records on these albums, you know what I'm saying, Like, even
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  like going back to Cali or whatever it's called, I forget that's what it's
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  called, right, because I was thinking about the big person that it was
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  just different. He was just trying different things and again variety and over time
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  from songs like around the Way Girl, I like I Need Love, but
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  it's not one of those It's one of those records that come on and I'll
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  mess with and I'll sing it, but I don't necessarily necessarily go with the
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  press play right on that record in particular, but Jingling Baby. And then
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  eventually I remember and forget fourteen Shots to the Dom. I think they came
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  out like ninety three or something like that, and I started feeling like,
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  oh, well, maybe this is when he falls off, because now there's
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  a new generation. He's trying to look the part. He got the black
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  fatigues on and all of that, and this album isn't really that good?
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  And then he drops when you know, my freshman year in college, he
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  drops mister Smith and you got songs like I Shot You and the version without
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  Everybody is dope because I heard that verse, and then the joint that got
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  Foxy and Prodigy and Fat Joe Keith Murray on it was even doper. And
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  he is all from a time way before this spending on this record. Don't
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  get me started on doing it. I'm a freshman year in college doing it
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  in the club. It's crazy, okay. And again throughout his career,
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  records like No Airplay and stuff like that, and I just felt like l
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  L. One of the reasons why I think he's one of my top five
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  our greatest mcs all time is he cannot only make records for the ladies,
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  but he can make them for the fellas as well. It became a time
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  where people felt like that's all he was, like he was father m see,
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  and he was far from being that because he still made dope records and
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  he battled right break it, Dawn, I mean not break it, is
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  it breaking down? I guess. So he battled rappers from back then like
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  Kumo d He battled up and coming rappers like Cannabis. He displayed his skill
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  on po posse cuts with different generations of hip hop artists, and I think
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  he did it in a lot of ways, you know, to kind of
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  test if he still had it. And you're talking about a dude who was
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  basically mid to late eighties when he was out. That's crazy. And again,
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  even though sales don't play a part in this, it's remember sales is
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  also impact. You don't just sell because you're popular. There's a reason why
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  you're popular. You're popular, not because you take your shirt off. It's
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  plenty of dudes with muscles who take their shirt off, right. The rest
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  of us don't wear shirts. But what I'm saying is is people like the
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  music, and it's some guys I don't want to hear none of that lovey
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  dovey stuff and hip hop. And I get it. But around the Way,
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  Girl was dope, Big Old Butt was dope. Okay, doing it
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  was dope. Paradise was dope. Like LL just had a knack for making
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  great records but never leaving hip hop, hardcore hip hop behind, and he
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  lasted throughout decade. And when I say that, I'm not like, oh
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  he's around releasing music. No, those mixtapes in the nineties that had all
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  these new artists and they just killing it with the bars. There was always
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  a new ll record on him, and you didn't skip it. He survived,
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  certain he had hits in eras from bad Boy to Death Road to the
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  early Death Jam, to the fifty era, the Rockefeller era, the rough
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  Rider era, the Cash Money era, the No Limit era. Like El
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  still had hits and still was making music and still had a level of respect
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  as an MC. So that's why he's my number too. I know I
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  spent a lot on him, but if I'm gonna call him a door,
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  I gotta say some stuff, you know, all right next Nas Now,
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  those who who know me or don't know, just to clear the ass,
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  so you know there's no real body's head. I grew up around uns.
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  I'm not from Queensbridge Bridge. I'm from Brooklyn. My family's from Queensbridge.
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  My close cousin was Illwill, who was also Ninas's best friend and our friends.
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  I don't know, that's whatever semantics. So I was around. I
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  know when he was. When we just called him not see him, it
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  took me a long time to just not call him man. But there was
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  a point in time where it went from a guy I knew and I'm listening
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  to him rap to an MC that I admired, and I'm like, he's
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  one of the greatest of all time. And of course there's illmatic, but
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  then there's also it was written, and when I first heard the message,
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  I was like, why not? Nas is crazy? It's crazy. Some
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  of the bars on it. It was written album some of the best he's
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  ever done. When I heard I for an Eye on mob Deep's album,
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  My God, like just some of the just some of the lyrics he put
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  together in a way he could only do, like a street poet type of
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  situation. You know what I'm saying, a drug dealer's dreams, dashed cream.
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  He's on a triple Bean five hundred sl Green ninety five, nikked Glean
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  Condomindium drug thug, dress like a gentleman, Taylor may Ostrich channel for my
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  women friend, murdering numbers on your head while I'm Burger Wrin. I think
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  I switched that around, but you get the point. It's been a while
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  him being on only built for Cuban links with verbal incoors that verse. You
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  know what I'm saying, him and a Z and all the work they've done
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  and his whole career. You know, I am has some choice, the
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  Lost States, the album that should have been, stuff like Blazer fifty and
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  feed us on it, the DJ clue Foulness. Man, if you have
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  never heard the Foundness, you need to NAS rapping over old school beats,
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  just some just crazy rapping, just dumb nights with it. And you in
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  the battle with jay Z with Ethan life is good. You just fast forward,
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  You just go through this made you look songs like I can. I
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  know, I can't think of a record for the kids that was kind of
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  a hit. It Silk, It's played the block on New York Odyssey,
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  they played It's in rotation, that song from NAS out of all the songs
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  have And then there's the hip boy work. Now there was a time where
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  I didn't necessarily have Now it's in my top five. And some of my
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  support of his music over the years just came from I'm going to support him
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  whether it's hot or garbage. But then when I'm watching my peers react to
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  all of this and I'm reacting to it in real time, the album and
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  the music that he's releasing. I'm like, I need to stop thinking about
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  it that way. He's one of my favorite rappers. That's why I have
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  all his music. It ain't just because I grew up around him, because
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  he's worthy of it. To me as a fan, He's just that dope
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  and the hip boy run six albums, and really the one that you considered,
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  the not good one, which I think is magic too, is not
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  really that bad. It's just not the other five. The ratio is pretty
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  good when when you're looking at it that way. So again, has has
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  he or any of the other three I mentioned had songs that I necessarily didn't
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  like versus others or even albums of course, But at the end of the
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  day, what Nas has been able to do with his career lyrically, with
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  how he impacts fans and in ways that excite them for his music, and
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  no one would ever say that Nas lyrically has been whack. You may not
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  like it because it's just not the type of music you like. That's cool,
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  You're gonna respect them bars, you got to. You gotta respect it.
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  So who more? Togo jay Z. Now, I'm not one of
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  those people who feel like jay Z and Nas are eternally linked together, so
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  if you say one, you gotta say the others, kind of like people
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  do Big and Tupac. I'm just keeping it abut jay Z in a lot
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  of ways, was was and not just him, but was the soundtrack to
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  my college experience, you know what I'm saying. Like jay Z wasn't there
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  when I arrived right in ninety five. Jay Z wasn't really popping like that.
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  But I remember and I had to can set back there, back here
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  when I was in B Street, and you know, a dude just handed
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  me sampler of jay Z's Reasonable Doubt and it had a couple of songs on
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  there, like Knck the Hustle was on there. Only a customer was on
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  there in my lifetime, both versions was on there, and I think Dead
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  Presidence and made me one other song, and I remember when I heard that,
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  I'm like, this ain't the same guy from that original flavor? This
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  he better now? Like this is dope, And I remember shutout to Coke.
• 24:07
  I remember debating with him because I was the only one that had the
• 24:11
  samples, so I was playing for them and like, yo, you hear
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  what he said here you hear this joint, this joint crazy blah blah blah,
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  and me and him were debating who was better jay Z or ghost Face,
• 24:19
  which at the time was crazy because ghost Face was really only on at
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  that point in time, was only on thirty six chambers and only built for
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  Cuban Lane, so that was like you didn't have I ain't man yet.
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  So at that time we were debating, I was like, cha Z better
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  than go what are you talking about? He's better than Ghosts? And I
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  just remember like especially once big Guy, but when that debut album, Like
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  I saw jay Z during my college years about performing like three times, three
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  or four times like by accident right now. One time was on purpose,
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  right, because we went there specifically, Like there was one homecoming where I
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  don't know if he was opening up, but Faith Evans was the main act
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  and jay Z was a part of that, and like Bleek was there and
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  all that, and this is early, this is reasonable doubt. This this
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  him driving the Lexus to Baltimore and to Morgan State to perform, right,
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  and I thought he was doped in. And then there was one another homecoming
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  where and we went to both parties where Buster rhoms was performing and he had
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  put your hands with my odsc see out, so you knew he was going
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  to that. But we had to stop at this other homecoming party first because
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  it may sound crazy now, but it was jay Z and fox He was
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  there and it wasn't passed, and it wasn't a reasonable doubt, wasn't out
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  yet. It was about to come out. But we had been listening to
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  the sample and we loved we love the new single with Foxy, and we
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  was like, yo, we gotta go see him first. And he performed
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  on this not even a stage, like it wasn't even that crazy of a
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  stage. And I remember him and Foxy performed, and you know, we
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  was right up front. We knew the lyrics and he could tell we knew
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  the lyrics because we were just like we knew it right because we was hip
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  hop ads. And I remember he teased Frame the Foe right there and we
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  thought he was freestyle. He was like, Yo, I'm gonna do this
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  one thing, and he did it and we was like, y'all that story
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  joint was crazy. We went to the other party telling us, for yo,
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  you should have so he did this joint story for the Froe. Yo
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  stage, you're biz mm, you're in the dope there it is me.
• 26:47
  I run the show. Oh his kids don't like nobody like were like,
• 26:49
  yo, this joint crazy and then reasonable doubt came out. I was like,
• 26:53
  yo, it's on an album and know he got a song with Big
• 26:59
  So like with jay Z, with every album drop and he was dropping like
• 27:02
  every year. That's why it's like the soundtrack to my college years. Every
• 27:07
  year it was like must see TV situation for a new j album, right,
• 27:15
  and we would debate him. We would anticipate him, like the first
• 27:18
  time we heard a million and one questions on his second album, Value One
• 27:26
  were premier. We was like, yo, and you know what other record,
• 27:30
  I won't spend too much time. It's like that off the kid Capri
• 27:34
  Joini. Just put it this way. One of the reasons why jay Z
• 27:44
  is on my tip five is not only because of his early work. Obviously,
• 27:49
  I love things like American Gangster and the Blueprint Black album Eat all the
• 27:56
  way up to four four to four. It was just jay Z's commentary in
• 28:03
  his bars separated him from his piers, his peers and this is no slight,
• 28:08
  but his piers usually came across as you know, on the corner drug
• 28:14
  boy kind of situation. But jay Z, like I always say, and
• 28:18
  if you're a fan of the Wire, he always felt more like string of
• 28:22
  Bell the bigger picture, I'm not doing this to be the dopest dope boy.
• 28:29
  I'm doing this to buy buildings. I'm doing this to own businesses.
• 28:33
  And it's all throughout his music and one of my favorite records off a Reasonable
• 28:38
  Doubts Politics as Usual, because it's the reason why some of us like Rick
• 28:45
  Ross and his lavish raps right Politics as Usual, is that feeling it is
• 28:52
  that can knock the hustle. Is that he was just rapping about different you
• 29:00
  know, in the same way as you know, it was the same hood
• 29:04
  drug culture, but it was different. It was almost like sophisticated hardcore rap
• 29:11
  feel me. And That's what I liked about him and his music, and
• 29:15
  he's always brought that to it. And again, regardless of what he drops,
• 29:22
  I'm always going to check for if the albums like Kingdom come that I
• 29:26
  think is really bad, but I'm always checking for jay Z because he's had
• 29:33
  that much of an impact on me as an MC. And lastly, and
• 29:38
  this guy has worked his way into my top five, and they are many
• 29:45
  artists like Kougie Rat and Caine and KRS and a ghost Face, Like there's
• 29:53
  so many the locks. It's so many great mcs over the year is But
• 30:02
  again, when it comes to my favorites and in his top five, it's
• 30:07
  all about the impact on a much deeper level, and that's Kendrick Lamar and
• 30:14
  the only reason why. And I have nothing to do with these battles because
• 30:17
  I was always champion in this dude since Good kid Man City, really since
• 30:22
  Section eighty. But he just doesn't disappoint and I can't anticipate what he's going
• 30:32
  to do, and that's what makes it intriguing. And when I am able
• 30:37
  to decipher what he's doing with this project versus the next project, it just
• 30:44
  keeps feeding the legend that is kde Okay. And this battle proved the argument
• 30:55
  that I used to give to people who I knew who didn't really care for
• 30:57
  him, and when they heard certain records like Meet the Grahams or Not Like
• 31:03
  Us or six sixteen in La or Euphoria, I was like, that's why
• 31:10
  I like him. You released like five disc records, none of them sound
• 31:15
  the same. All of them are doping their own right and they all leave
• 31:21
  each the eggs to the next record, and exceptually they all at one statement.
• 31:26
  That's Kendrick Jamarrow when he released his albums Good kid Man City is nothing
• 31:33
  like the Pimple Butterfly. Pimple Butterfly is dope. It's nothing like Damn missed
• 31:41
  him around the Big Steppers. I know a lot of people wanted a certain
• 31:45
  vibe, but it was a concept album and there's songs on there you could
• 31:51
  vibe to, but the album is a concept And that's what I like about
• 31:56
  him because not only do I pay his music and I'll always check for it
• 32:01
  because, like I said, with all these artists, I never feel like
• 32:06
  they're gonna make something to cheat the game. Right here, I go,
• 32:10
  Higo, Hi go some new songs. Y'are happy. They're just never gonna
• 32:15
  do that. Whatever they do is gonna have purpose even if you don't like
• 32:20
  it. And I feel like with Kendrick lamar lyrically where his bars can go
• 32:27
  anywhere from the history of the West Coast to being very technical like a Tech
• 32:35
  nine or an eminem style or whatever, or Pharaoh Man shout out to pharaomonts
• 32:43
  to social issues, to issues that affect only the hood, to issues that
• 32:49
  affect everybody, to issues that affect them. And it's not preachy, you
• 32:54
  know what I'm saying. It's not to the point where you're like, all
• 32:57
  right with the civil rights movement out. No. A lot of times,
• 33:01
  one thing I said to somebody is this is what the key. This is
• 33:06
  what I like about Kendrick Gamart moos, and this is what the key is
• 33:09
  to actually listening to him if you're looking for dumbed down music. And I
• 33:15
  don't even mean that in a derogatory way. I just mean something simple enough
• 33:19
  for you to understand and sing the hook. Kendrick Glamar sometimes will appear as
• 33:24
  if that's what he's making, But if you understand a lot of things that
• 33:30
  he's saying, you realize, oh, this song is much deeper than just
• 33:34
  you know, you know the hook, and a lot of music doesn't do
• 33:38
  that. Yeah, you can pry out meanings, but you can point to
• 33:44
  the evidence within his bars, within his song, within his albums to say,
• 33:47
  this is the concept, and that's what hip hop has always been about.
• 33:52
  If somebody's ever said a line that you didn't necessarily get and someone explained
• 33:58
  it to you, or maybe you got it later and you're like, it's
• 34:01
  crazy. I didn't even realize he was saying that. That's where the admiration
• 34:06
  starts to hit. And I think that's what Kendrick Lamar is. So he's
• 34:09
  not easily digestible to the common end. You just have to be willing to
• 34:15
  understand. This guy's never are on the surface, dude. It's always a
• 34:22
  method to his madness, and that's why he's one of the greatest mcs of
• 34:28
  all time. To me, who are your top five greatest mcs of all
• 34:32
  time? Leave your comments in a comments section below. We are trying to
• 34:37
  get to five hundred subscribers. Also check out my Top five hip Hop Albums
• 34:44
  of all Time, where I talk a little bit about all of the albums,
• 34:47
  including the one I Got All My Shizzer. But again, this podcast
• 34:54
  is available everywhere. You can follow me on social media at Vegas World.
• 34:59
  I inc that you like this podcast, get the like bud, subscribe.
• 35:01
  We're trying to get to five hundred, but more importantly, share with people
• 35:07
  you know enjoy this kind of content. Until next time, y'all, I'm
• 35:09
  not a critic, I'm a fan. Peace