In rap there is a lot of reference to being the best, the greatest, number one.
The Goat.
Well today we are going to take a look at the greatest
rappers in the genre and work out who truly is
the greatest of all time.
Let’s do it.
10 - Lil Wayne 5 years ago Lil wayne passed a major milestone
on the billboard charts.
He passed Elvis to become the artist with the most billboards
hot 100 hits of all time.
His inclusion on this list is mostly due to his longevity starting his career
in 1996 and still going strong 21 years later.
With 11 studio albums and a seemingly endless supply
of mixtapes and song features.
Its pretty easy to see him in our 10 position on this list.
9 - Rakim Paid in Full is looked at as the album that
changed rap forever.
From the old school to the new so to speak.
Rakim has one of the greatest deliveries in all of rap music and his command or
bar structure was beyond anyone in 1987 and gives many MC’s today a run for money.
If you haven't heard Rakin and Eric B’s Paid in
full pause this video now go listen to it and come back
here after we’ll wait.
See we told you it was incredible.
You’re right his sound really is the blueprint for many of our favorite MC’s
8 - Nas From a lyrical standpoint there are few people
who can compete with Nas.
Bursting onto the scene in 1994 with the legendary album illmatic
which is widely considered one of the greatest if
not the greatest rap album of all time.
Watch out if you get on Nas’ bad side or you may catch
yourself on the wrong side of a diss track.
The Song “Ether” from 2001 Stillmatic roasted Jay-Z
so hard that people thought Hova was done for.
Need more proof?
Nas’ B-side collection the Lost tapes it better than most artists A-side
studio releases.
7 - Lauryn Hill Lauryn Hill’s 1998 debut “The Miseducation
of Lauryn Hill” Is the very definition of a classic
album but that's not surprising.
Lauryn Hill has been part of some of the best hip hop ever.
As part of the Fugees she changed the landscape
of rap with such hits as “Killing Me Softly”, “Fugee-La” and “Ready or Not” with
nas she crushed the song “If I ruled the world” and on her
own album she reached number 1 on the billboard charts with “Doo-Wap (That Thing)” and
that album sold 2.4 million copies in under 4 months.
So ready or not Lauryn Hill is one of the best
ever.
6 - Andre 3000 What can you even say about Andre 3000.
He was one half the legendary (potentially greatest
duo) in the history of rap Outkast.
He made multiple platinum selling records and made some
amazing unique music.
From Rosa Parks to the Art of storytelling Andre has consistently
dropped some of the most thought provoking and downright funky lyrics in all of rap music.
Then he went solo and made the song Hey-Ya which
decided to take over the radio waves in the fall
of 2003.
That track was listed at number 2 on the list of best songs from 2000-2004 by pitchfork
and number 15 on Blender’s list of “Best Songs released since you were born.”
Stylistically Andre brings a flair and style all his own
and his placement of metaphors inside of and crossing
bars is at the top of the game and inimitable. 5 - Kanye West
There are few artists on this list who elicit such a reaction as yeezy.
No matter what you think of him as a person.
He is a truly unique musical mind producing tons of hits before even grabbing
the mic himself.
But once he did He ascended to the absolute pinnacle of rap music and has
decided to never leave.
Ye has 15 top 20 singles and is featured on over 20 top 20 singles.
The man is a hit factory.
In addition to being a musical genius he has taken on shoes, high fashion
and the art world.
While he can come off as an egotistical jerk there is no denying that he but in
the top 5 greatest of all time.
4 - Jay Z Hova is a legend.
That’s pretty much all we need to say.
But we will say more.
He just released his 14th studio album and like all the other
records in his collection it went platinum.
Jay Z embodies everything that is new york rap music.
He is so good that he got scorched by Nas and
walked right through it and kept churning out hits.
On top of that he is one half of the most powerful couple in music basically the quintessential
music power couple.
He is the owner of 16 top 25 hit singles and has sold 55 Million
total records.
That's one record for everyone in california to have 2 with half of them with
enough left over for 15 million people to have a
second one.
Hova would be the goat if we didn't have these 3 to get to.
3 - Tupac Alright now here is where we get into the
dicey territory.
This is where subjectivity and taste will define how this top 3 plays out.
Tupac is a god in rap music.
He has sold 75 million records worldwide and every record in discography
is pretty much a classic from the albums released when he was alive.
2pacalypse now, strictly 4, me against the world, all eyez on me.
To the records released after his passing.
He has 13 top ten singles and 4 number one chart topping
hits.
On top of being one of the greatest mc’s of all time he had a burgeoning acting career.
The most astonishing thing about tupac his career
started in 1992 and end in 1996 in 4 years he did
more than most rappers do over the course of 10 even 20 years in the game.
You could argue he is the greatest ever and you wouldn't be
wrong.
2 - Biggie 1994’s Ready to Die is a masterclass is
hit songs, efficient lyricism and powerful metaphors.
Biggie is pretty much unstoppable when it comes to how he crafts his bars.
Nothing is wasted.
His bar structure is so precise that papers have been written and videos have been made
exploring how phenomenal his lyrical work is.
Part of what is impressive about biggie is that he
released 2 studio albums.
2.
Every single song he was ever a part of is a hit and in the modern
streaming era he is still so popular that spotify has him clocked in at 5.5 million
streams a month and 818 million lifetime streams.
For many rappers when they pass they are elevated to another
1 - Eminem From the moment Marshall Mathers came on the
scene he took over.
He is the best selling musical artist from 2000-2009.
He is the first artist with a two certified diamond streaming hit
singles.
The utterly staggering number of records he has sold is 172 million.
He is so far ahead of his contemporaries in sales we could stop
right there and nothing more would need to be said
on the matter.
But we’ll keep going.
He is the only rap artist to win best rap album 3 consecutive
years and has 15 total grammy wins.
Lyrically he is in a class of his own crafting intricate
narrative stories ala stan or scathing hot takes on the world around him.
While not as complex with his bar structures as Biggie he is a
master of spanning his bars and tieing multiple rhyme
schemes together.
Eminem is the GOAT.
That’s the list.
What did we get wrong.
Who did we leave out.
Let us know in the comments about who is truly the goat and don’t forget
to like this video.