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He is. Give me one soulful or social conscious song Jay-Z has ever written? Any top 5 MC list, and almost everyone has gone into that territory. Jay-Z never touched it. Hell even lil Boosie is all about that.
No Brenda's Got A Baby. No Fight The Power. No If I ruled The World. No A Bird in The Hand. No Who We Be. No Hand of The Dead Body.
1. Why is a soulful (whatever that means) or socially conscious song a requirement to be a great rapper? BEP had socially conscious songs since the jump and nobody is calling Wil.I.Am. the best anything.
2. Soulful. The entire Blueprint album. If you're talking about soulful as in
sound, you'd be hard-pressed to find another album better than this one. To me, it's still Kanye's best work in terms of beatmaking. His production technique has become more refined, but in terms of enjoyability, can't touch it. Same with Just Blaze. Timbaland turned in an average beat and it still became a single. It was also the only Eminem beat that wasn't hot garbage. Probably the second-best produced album of all-time in rap.
Now, soulful as in content? Last verse of "Regrets", "Song Cry", "Lost One", there are so many. Not sure what you're missing. His verse on "This Can't Be Life" was one of his best ever. That whole song gets me teary-eyed if you can believe it. That's because as great as his verse was, Beanie Sigel's verse was probably the best of his career and Scarface's verse was probably one of the best of all-time. Throw in the drums from "Xxplosive" and you have Kanye's first classic beat. All four of them should have done an album together, but that's another topic.
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I'm not even a hater and like Jay Z's stuff, but I can't understand how or when he came into discussion as one of the best ever.
For so many reasons. He started out as top tier New York rapper in a pack of New Yorkers (Biggie, Nas, Big L, Pun, Mobb Deep, a few from the Wu, etc.) based on ability alone. His early career flow was about as elastic as you could get. It was indicative of the style at the time (rapid fire/Midwest) and he able to do back flips rapping that way. The only other New York rapper at the time who was a versatile in terms of flow was Big.
Another reason was that he was rapper's rapper. His lyrics were smart and clever and his internal rhyme schemes were very dense. It wasn't some Run-DMC-The-Cat-in-the-Hat ****. It was Rakimesque double-backs.
In addition to versatility ability-wise, his music was also very versatile. To me, to be in the argument for the GOAT, you have to be versatile. You have to be simultaneously accepted by the underground as well as by the masses. Only a few have been able to do this: Notorious BIG, Nas, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Eminem, and Outkast. These are people who the staunchest backpacker would acknowledge as a solid contributor and who the whitest of white girls could pick a song of theirs to dance to. It's a short list and Nas is baaaaarely in it. Jay-Z is obvious the king of it. I mean he was battling DMX in pool halls and trading verses with Big L and now he's doing stadium tours like it's nothing.
The other major deciding factor is the long-held idea in rap of the "classic album." Jay has two of them in Reasonable Doubt and The Blueprint. One for rhyming his ass off and the other for it's musical superiority. And of course, he has singles for days.
The last criteria I want to touch on is performing live. If you've ever seen him, you know he commands an arena with the ease that you and I would navigate a happy hour conversation with our friends. I've seen him in small and large venues and he's excelled in both. The only other live rap act that surpassed him who I've seen were the Beastie Boys and Kanye. The only two GOAT level rappers I've never seen Biggie and Tupac, so I can't speak to them.
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He rode on prestige of Reasonable Doubt. It was considered a masterpiece, and it is. I'll never argue that.
But after that, his releases were all hype. His confidence and charisma came from Dame.
Nah. Reasonable Doubt got him on the map. What kept him there was him being able to rap circles around everyone else and his good ear for beats. I don't understand how you can attribute the hype/confidence/charisma to Dame Dash. Last I checked, Dame was in charge of Memphis Bleek too. And Freeway. And Amil. And Young Guns. And Juelz Santana. And so on. They all had at least one hit single and how many of them lasted? They didn't. Dame didn't. Jay-Z sure as hell didn't get to the top based on looks, so you tell me.
His releases were hype because for the most part, the quality was always there.
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Funny you quote that line. Jay got annihilated on that track.
Doesn't make the line any less valid. And that was a year 2000-2001 Eminem rapping on that, so anyone who guested would have been annihilated on it.
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HOV has reached legend status just by the consistent level of product he has put out. True, he is definitely more of a brand now than a true MC, and I thought MCHG was a weak album. Blueprint 3 had a few bangers, but overall, his best work is behind him, but he still carries the name, etc. Watch the throne had some dope **** too.
Don't get me wrong, I frequent a lot of JayZ albums and really enjoy his music, but if you put him against someone like Kendrick right now, he is second IMO.
All accurate. I'm not a Jay-Z stan, so I know he's coasted on his past two albums. The last album he put decent effort into was WTT and he lit up Kanye on some of those tracks. His verses on "No Church in the Wild" and "Gotta Have It" were incredible. He can still go bar for bar with anyone if wanted to (see that track he did with Jay Electronica a month ago). Obviously, you lose some of the hunger when you get older, so nobody is really seeing Kendrick right now (even though Big KRIT laid waste to his first single a couple of days ago).
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He's not on mine. Come at me.
Pac
Nas
Scarface
Em
Ice Cube
Ice Cube in his peak, severely underrated. I'm putting him over Big, Pun, Jig, Black Thought & AZ.
Decent top 5, it's your opinion. All have at least one classic album. All have tasted critical and commercial success. But aside from Nas, none of them have the longevity that Jay-Z has had as far as productive work. I mean you accuse Jay-Z of coasting after his initial success, but you have the posterboy of that offense in Ice Cube. He wrote all of NWA's lyrics and now he's making family movies and selling Coors Light. Ice Cube's run was from 1987-1993 as far as good rapping. Westside Connection was good music, but far from good rapping. Eminem is weird case. He can probably outrap any person alive, but he's made terrible, terrible music. At least post-8 Mile. His albums are either complete cheese and/or have zero replay value. I can't imagine a grown man driving around listening to any of Eminem's albums front to back. Of all the GOAT candidates, Eminem has the shakiest catalog. I group Scarface a little above Ice Cube. Success with a group and solo. The difference is that Scarface had success after 1996. The Fix is a classic album to me and that came out in 2002. It's like Tim Duncan winning the MVP his rookie year in 1998 AND again two years ago. Nas and Tupac I can't say anything about. They should be in 99% of people's top five list.
Here's my top 10 best rappers list:
1. Notorious BIG
2. Rakim
3. Jay-Z
4. Nas
5. Tupac
6. Big Daddy Kane
7. Andre 3000
8. Scarface
9. Ice Cube
10. Eminem
[This message has been edited by Head Ninja In Charge (edited 4/30/2014 7:01p).]
