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List your top 5 MCs

billbradleybillbradley You want BBQ sauce? Get the fuck out of my house. 2,906 Posts
in Strut Central

Listening to Backspin on XM/Sirius radio Combat Jack asks all of the rappers to list off their top 5 MCs during his interviews. Not necessarily the greatest of all time but MC's you like. He'll finish by saying "you can't pick a group like Wu Tang and others because that'll be like be like 35 people". It's always interesting hearing people's responses. Older dudes pick much different MC's than the millennials.  

I'll start...

1. Ice Cube
2. Biggie
3. Rakim
4. Phife Dawg
5. Busta Rhymes

Honorable mentions:
Scarface
Treach

  Comments

  • EIGHTYEIGHTY 224 Posts
    1. Dylan
    2.Dylan
    3.Dylan
    4.Dylan
    5. and Dylan
    billbradleypara11ax
  • billbradleybillbradley You want BBQ sauce? Get the fuck out of my house. 2,906 Posts
    Because he spits hot fire

    EIGHTYpara11ax
  • EIGHTYEIGHTY 224 Posts
    1.Nas( Having a classic as your major debut is a gift and a curse. I think It Was Written was a classic too.)

    2.Black Thought 

    3.Rakim

    4.Common

    5.Xzibit 

    These are just off the top of my dome. This list always changes over time. 
  • para11axpara11ax No-style-havin' mf'er 399 Posts
    No particular order:

    Method Man
    Biggie
    Rakim
    Mos Def
    Brother Ali
  • Sobriety WonSobriety Won 74 Posts
    GURU - he can never be wack now.
    BIG DADDY KANE - voice, delivery, funkyness, punchlines & power.
    RAKIM - changed the game lyrically & stand out voice / flow.
    LORD FINESSE - the funkyman, king of the punchline raps.
    KOOL KEITH (ultra era) - unique voice / style & off the wall sex / space raps.

    Honorable mentions:
    GRAND PUBA
    MASTA ACE

  • klezmer electro-thug beatsklezmer electro-thug beats 1,387 Posts
    CHUBB ROCK
    guy who GOT HIS DICK OUT IN OZ
    PRIME MINISTER PETE NICE from 3rd Bass
    FUNKDOOBIEST
    JUST KIDDING DON'T WORRY (although I do genuinely ride for Pete)

    for real, with 5 seconds consideration:
    Kool Keith
    Method Man
    Masta Ace
    Busta
    Big L
  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts

    1. Rakim
    2. Q-Tip
    3. Busta
    4. MCA
    5. Nas

    Scarface, Kool Keith, G Rap, Mos Def, Biz Markie, OC... all my choices would be pre-'00s when the hook was an after-thought.
  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,955 Posts
    Biggie
    Tip
    Phiffe
    Schooly D
    In another shock pro-Beastie move, Ad Rock

  • ketanketan Warmly booming riffs 3,171 Posts
    I'm terrible at these things. While I'm pretty clear on my top 4, I have a three-way tie for #5, and thought I'd add my long list of other favs who didn't make the cut for various reasons.

    1. Ice Cube
    2. Kool G Rap
    3. Guru
    4. Nas

    5. Chuck D
    5. Big Daddy Kane
    5. Ghostface

    Busta
    Pharoahe Monch
    Prodigy
    Kurupt
    Sadat X
    Ab-Soul
    Schoolboy Q
    El-P
    Opio
    MF Doom
    Husalah

    This thraed is a real sausage party tho.
  • foefoe turo de la peira 197 Posts
    no particular order:
    andre 3000
    pimp c 
    mac dre
    q-tip
    doom
    ghostface
    slick rick

    i had to go 7
  • devoglamdevoglam 143 Posts
    This is a surreal topic to address in 2017. I gotta think about it
  • EIGHTYEIGHTY 224 Posts
    If we want to throw in female emcees then RahDigga should be on this list.
  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    I'm more interested to see who will put a present-day MC up against Rakim/Biggie/Nas/Big L etc.
  • EIGHTYEIGHTY 224 Posts
    Duderonomy said:
    I'm more interested to see who will put a present-day MC up against Rakim/Biggie/Nas/Big L etc.
    Kendrick. 

    I just want to see the debates fly.
  • ketanketan Warmly booming riffs 3,171 Posts
    Duderonomy said:
    I'm more interested to see who will put a present-day MC up against Rakim/Biggie/Nas/Big L etc.
    Oh shit, I forgot about L.
    I guess I took an L.
    Oh, well.
  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    ketan said:
    I'm more interested to see who will put a present-day MC up against Rakim/Biggie/Nas/Big L etc.
    Oh shit, I forgot about L.
    I guess I took an L.
    Oh, well.
    Seeing MF Doom mentioned reminds me: I think the reason he had a late career resurgence is simply because the standard of raps in the early-mid 90s was so high his KMD work just didn't stand out from the crowd much. Ffwd to the 00s and teenage Stones Throw completionists and Madlib wannabes hear Doom and act like he reinvented the wheel.

    My favourite Doom track is a Vik Vaugh piece with Kool Keith who, twenty fucking years past his zenith, effortlessly puts Doom in the shade:



    Doom fans will talk about compound rhymes and poetic science, I hear a guy mumbling over a book of words he pulled out of a thesaurus while Keith just sounds cool.
  • ketanketan Warmly booming riffs 3,171 Posts
    ^^for me Doomsday more than anything was such a watershed moment.  
  • klezmer electro-thug beatsklezmer electro-thug beats 1,387 Posts
    I like Doom and all, don't get me wrong, but my favorites of his feature Mr Fantastik, an anonymous dude off the street Doom hired for two songs, and I like Fantastik's verses better:

  • foefoe turo de la peira 197 Posts
    i'm more of a black bastards/doomsday fan and i feel he slowly got too technical and a bit soulless, but i have to add him as he was by far my favourite rapper for a few years. i agree that he got super popular with madvillain, those rhymes are to dense not to be appreciated by a earl sweatshirt fan.
  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    ketan said:
    ^^for me Doomsday more than anything was such a watershed moment.  
    I bought the Dead Bent 12" after I heard Z-Trip rocking the scooby doo beat on a mix tape, and not even sure I knew it was the same dude from TTLab's reissue of KMD's What A N*gga Know - sounded very different.
    My other fav Doom track is the Hooks Is Extra 7", mainly for the instrumental!

    I like Doom's production a lot more than his raps.
  • billbradleybillbradley You want BBQ sauce? Get the fuck out of my house. 2,906 Posts
    ketan said:

    This thraed is a real sausage party tho.

    It's not that there aren't any good female MC's. They just don't fit into the top 5 MCs for me and most others apparently. I'll start a new thread. 
  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    billbradley said:
    ketan said:

    This thraed is a real sausage party tho.

    It's not that there aren't any good female MC's. They just don't fit into the top 5 MCs for me and most others apparently. 
    This.
  • ketanketan Warmly booming riffs 3,171 Posts
    I forgot about ice t, who is in my top five.  I'm going to revise this list...
  • EIGHTYEIGHTY 224 Posts
    Is there anyone in the last couple of years that you would put as a top 5 now?

    Because in my opinion Kendrick has been doing work for the last three albums. Also Killer Mike stays consistent. 
  • klezmer electro-thug beatsklezmer electro-thug beats 1,387 Posts
    klezmer electro-thug beats said:
    CHUBB ROCK
    guy who GOT HIS DICK OUT IN OZ
    PRIME MINISTER PETE NICE from 3rd Bass
    FUNKDOOBIEST
    JUST KIDDING DON'T WORRY (although I do genuinely ride for Pete)

    for real, with 5 seconds consideration:
    Kool Keith
    Method Man
    Masta Ace
    Busta
    Big L
    I know it doesn't matter and all but after a lot of soul searching over the past days I have to knock off MA for E-40. Not a joke, sorry
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