Mine are pretty chart-friendly choices, but that's just how it rolls, I guess. Stuff like Gang Starr, Pharcyde, MF Doom, De La Soul etc is shit I fucking LOVE but for the highs the artists below have provided me with, they miss the cut. Snoop, Outkast, UGK and Dre miss the cut as well, which surprised me, especially since I've been listening to all 4 a lot lately. OFWGKTA will be high up this list in a few years, I reckon. Dizzee can count himself unlucky as well. The below is in no order, it was fucking hard enough to get it down to 10
10. Notorious BIGAlways miles ahead of Tupac in that silly lil kerfuffle they had. Sure, Tupac had the polemic and the pedigree, but for me, flow and grime with something you can dance to almost always wins and Biggie was almost unmatched. He could say some properly repugnant shit but make it come across as so aloof and sexy. For a fat cunt. So great you didn't even mind that talentless goon Sean Coombs "uh huh yeah"ing on most of his tunes.
9. Public EnemyPretty revolutionary screeching whining production married to THAT booming sportscaster voice, punctuated by YEAAAAAHHHHH BOOIIII. 2 classic fucking albums, makes you want to start fucking shit up. Nuff said.
8. Missy Elliott/TimbalandMissy Elliott is often regarded as a bit of a joke and while it's true that she isn't a great MC (by any means) and her projects with other artists are usualy frightfully dull, when it was just her and Timbaland (before he went shit), it was FIRE. They went together so fucking well; scatty playground rhymes that went against itself and chewed itself up to to be spat out catchy nonsense, and all over some of the most innovative mainstream musical backdrops of the past howevermanyyears. Get Ur Freak On is the last single I ever bought and it's still jawdropping to this day. She had so many others though.
7. Lil WayneAnother one who isn't taken as seriously as he should be. He looks like a star, acts like a star, he can release a fantastic free triple album and then within a few months release a proper album that sells a million in a week. But that main thing is this; he is just
mind-bogglingly talented. Twisting metaphors over similes under analogies and and punching through convention and the very realms of sanity at every turn (and often within a single sentence). Even when he releases rubbish tunes (which is quite often), they are still often troves of silly, hilarious, ridiculous lyricisms that make you laugh. Stupidly inconsistent but when he's on form, he's the definition of a force of nature.
6. EminemOh, you don't need me to tell you. For the first 2 and a half albums and some absurdly stunning guest spots on other peoples tunes, he was a straight-up genius. It could be argued that he didn't have enough elasticity to his flow and that his lyrics weren't packed with intrigue. But the amount of shivers his words and his anger and his humour have sent through me negate all that.
5. NasProbably didn't rap over enough beats worthy of his storytelling, but what fucking storytelling! He sounds effortless. The video I'm including relates to yer man below him and is one of the best beef songs of all time.
4. Jay ZI had to have him in. I know no one else has and I know Nas gets more props around here but despite all the annoying frothy shite (like the last few albums), it's easy to forget how stunning he could be. A voice full of charisma and arrogance, with the ability to ride almost any type of beat and dispense plenty of lyrical gems. I had to have this Nas-dissing tune, it's probably slightly better than Ether.
3. Kanye WestA couple of years ago I was coming round to the thinking that Kanye was being pushed to the footnotes of hip hop history. College Dropout was classic, Late Registration was great, Graduation was meh, 808's and Heartbreaks was surprisingly brave and decent but I had no excitement for his newie. Basically, I'm a fucking idiot. One of my favourite albums of my lifetime, he turned everything up to 11 without ever forgetting what he is, first and foremost; the worlds best pop star. He's a nob, he's a superhero, he fucks around, he works really fucking hard, he samples and cuts up prog rock, all of his tracks sound different and involving, he's a gargantuan ego, he's relentlessly insecure and self-aware. And it all comes out in the most thrilling, era-defining way.
2. ClipseAnother act that rarely get love on here. But with 2 fucking fantastic albums and a handful of incendiary mixtapes, I don't really understand why. The Neptunes seem(ed) to save their most exciting, leftfield productions for these chaps to spit their incredibly precise cocaine-raps over. Pusha T and Malice are both superb MCs that can crawl and punch their way menacingly over these monstrously beautiful constructions and few other acts have given me that "what the fuck just happened?!" feeling upon first hearing their best tunes.
1. Wu Tang ClanThis will never happen again. Nine
phenomenally talented MC's come together through geography, each have their own distinct style, able to work as readily on their own as as an ensemble. OK, they only made one classic album as a group, but I'm counting solo efforts here too so fuck y'all
And when that one classic album is 36 Chambers, IMO the greatest hip hop record in history and of the best few in any genre, then that would be sufficient to put them as my number 1 (if this was in order
) But beyond that you have Liquid Swords, Cuban Linx, Fishscale, Nigga Please, Return To The 36 Chambers, Tical, Ironman, Supremer Clientele...breathless stuff, each one of them fucking brilliant. RZA's production genius, Method Mans charisma, Inspectah Decks storytelling, Ghostface Killahs explosiveness, GZA's domineering excellence, Raekwons range. ODB's maverick genius...how they got together is freakish. They changed the game, they very nearly changed
everything. The only problems being that they were as fractious as they were inimitable. But the best. Definitely the best.
And when that one classic album is 36 Chambers, IMO the greatest hip hop record in history and of the best few in any genre, then that would be sufficient to put them as my number 1 (if this was in order 
) But beyond that you have Liquid Swords, Cuban Linx, Fishscale, Nigga Please, Return To The 36 Chambers, Tical, Ironman, Supremer Clientele...breathless stuff, each one of them fucking brilliant. RZA's production genius, Method Mans charisma, Inspectah Decks storytelling, Ghostface Killahs explosiveness, GZA's domineering excellence, Raekwons range. ODB's maverick genius...how they got together is freakish. They changed the game, they very nearly changed everything. The only problems being that they were as fractious as they were inimitable. But the best. Definitely the best.
