2pac Vs Eminem ESPN 2012 FINAL MC BRACKET...Thoughts?

[West Coast Veteran]

70% of America is white, therefore Eminem will always win internet polls. He already won Vibe's poll. The new Elvis 

[Mak_Corleone]

Maybe if Em kept rapping the way he did on MMLP and TES, i believe he would be better than Pac. But Pac was that muthaphukka, following his own mind. he had a point doing almost everything he did, even on Death Row. The Makaveli album must be my favorite album of all. I even learned how 2 speak and understand english with Pac's music. And 4 record, i began listening to Eminem, Snoop, DMX and some other artist years b4 i got into Pac's music

[Triple OG Rapsodie]

XXL said it best, in their article about whether or not Pac was the greatest.  They said he had mastered flow, talking about how the way he rapped his lyrics and the energy and emotion put into how he presented them.  But as far as lyricism, Pac was generally average, with most rhymes being one, maybe two syllables (and the multi-syllabic ones were either simple or repetitive, like the Hennessy/enemies/remember me type of shit) with a lot of his metaphors and similes being very basic, for the most part.  Obviously a song like Me and My Girlfriend was a pretty dope concept, plus he was getting better toward the end of his life (as I personally always quote First to Bomb as proof), but his lyrics were mostly dope because he brought them to life.  His shit when rapped by other people just wasn't nearly as good -- i.e. Napolean rapping his verse on U Can Be Touched, Ja Rule rapping his lyrics on So Much Pain, C-Murder rapping his lyrics on On My Enemies, Snoop rapping his lyrics on Life's So Hard -- and we probably would think it was wack if we had never heard (or at least knew) that Pac wrote it.  But of course Pac stans cream over stuff like his verse on Got My Mind Made Up or when he used alliteration on If I Die 2Nite.

Meh, its the other way around in my mind. Biggie was the one who mastered flow. His lyrics aren't particularly complex at all. Pac used way more metaphors, similes and alliteration AND he actually said something doing it. Yeah he got lazy on some songs with the hennessey/enemies, but there's a lot of songs where he straight owns it.

I've never heard anyone from another music genre using multi-syllables to describe how lyrical an artist is. Singers don't care about the number of syllables period. That's someone internet rap fans came up with a few years back.

[TidyKris]

I think all these kind of polls are bullshit anyway, it always comes down to whos the most popular or who has the most fan base.

Hands down 2pac would win (or come in the top 3) of any kind of hip hop vote no matter what it was

[Blasphemy (A)]

XXL said it best, in their article about whether or not Pac was the greatest.  They said he had mastered flow, talking about how the way he rapped his lyrics and the energy and emotion put into how he presented them.  But as far as lyricism, Pac was generally average, with most rhymes being one, maybe two syllables (and the multi-syllabic ones were either simple or repetitive, like the Hennessy/enemies/remember me type of shit) with a lot of his metaphors and similes being very basic, for the most part.  Obviously a song like Me and My Girlfriend was a pretty dope concept, plus he was getting better toward the end of his life (as I personally always quote First to Bomb as proof), but his lyrics were mostly dope because he brought them to life.  His shit when rapped by other people just wasn't nearly as good -- i.e. Napolean rapping his verse on U Can Be Touched, Ja Rule rapping his lyrics on So Much Pain, C-Murder rapping his lyrics on On My Enemies, Snoop rapping his lyrics on Life's So Hard -- and we probably would think it was wack if we had never heard (or at least knew) that Pac wrote it.  But of course Pac stans cream over stuff like his verse on Got My Mind Made Up or when he used alliteration on If I Die 2Nite.

Meh, its the other way around in my mind. Biggie was the one who mastered flow. His lyrics aren't particularly complex at all. Pac used way more metaphors, similes and alliteration AND he actually said something doing it. Yeah he got lazy on some songs with the hennessey/enemies, but there's a lot of songs where he straight owns it.

I've never heard anyone from another music genre using multi-syllables to describe how lyrical an artist is. Singers don't care about the number of syllables period. That's someone internet rap fans came up with a few years back.

please tell me your fucking joking. The reason it's a thing in rap is because that's a defining trademark of the genre. If you truly think people on the internet came up with that shit, then I guess the god MC wasn't worth a damn thing then?

Complex Lyrics were always being praised, hell that was one of the main criticisms of the G-Funk Era.  The word play had been stripped of complexity for clarity, Despite the fact Snoop Dogg was at the time of his debut the biggiest rapper at the time, he garnered acclaim for his smooth flow, and was noted for his simplistic lyrics.  However that's always been the controversy, what makes a good MC, his lyrical abilities? his flow? subject matter? Charisma?


People can criticize Em for his faggy ass lyrics and his childish tracks, but despite them he's still produce at the very least two solid albums, that I bet everyone here has at least one or the other.  

If you think the greatest rapper of all time is the one who has quotables such as "ill bisexually reck ya", "im out the closet i been lyin my ass off, all this time me and dre been fuckin with hats off", "bend over and take it like a slut, okay mom" then hiphop has been nothing short of a failure. If thats the case, Tyler the Creator > Nas. Lil B > Jay-Z.

Like I said doesn't matter if you don't like what he's saying, skill is skill regardless if they choose to use said skill to break boundaries or to retread old topics. Lots of people said 2pacs Opus was "All Eyez On Me" but it's nothing more then a album that takes every last aspect of the G-Funk Sound/Era and pretty much packaged it into one.  Me personally I Think it's Me Against The World. but regardless All Eyez had essentially made Tupac the superstar he is known as today. Me Against The World pretty much put him in the spot light, lots of people told me this was they first pac album back in the day.


and some said "I'll be damn if you say Schoolly D is a better MC then anyone else, he's horrible".  Regardless he's still the first to do Gangsta Rap, as such he's still the originator, But because it wasn't done like N.W.A do we just ignore him? See that's the problem with this topic, people are using the artist popularity and the Impact the wrong way.

The only way you could figure out who's the truly best MC, you'd have to set a standard, which at this point doesn't exist. People say "oh he wasn't lyrical but he had emotion" "Well he had mad flow". Fuck that. You do it that way you'll debate forever, because you haven't figured out which is more required of a MC.


Snoops rhyming abilities aren't that good, but he gets away with it cause he can craft an amazing track with his flow/production. but Rakim, Nas and other artist do way better rhyming and still have a good flow. So by default shouldn't snoop be dropped from the list?

if you ask me, if you wanna rate, you need a set standard. LIke the Chronic became a benchmark for production, and Illmatic became the benchmark for lyrics. you need at the very least a benchmark to rate an MC.

[Triple OG Rapsodie]

XXL said it best, in their article about whether or not Pac was the greatest.  They said he had mastered flow, talking about how the way he rapped his lyrics and the energy and emotion put into how he presented them.  But as far as lyricism, Pac was generally average, with most rhymes being one, maybe two syllables (and the multi-syllabic ones were either simple or repetitive, like the Hennessy/enemies/remember me type of shit) with a lot of his metaphors and similes being very basic, for the most part.  Obviously a song like Me and My Girlfriend was a pretty dope concept, plus he was getting better toward the end of his life (as I personally always quote First to Bomb as proof), but his lyrics were mostly dope because he brought them to life.  His shit when rapped by other people just wasn't nearly as good -- i.e. Napolean rapping his verse on U Can Be Touched, Ja Rule rapping his lyrics on So Much Pain, C-Murder rapping his lyrics on On My Enemies, Snoop rapping his lyrics on Life's So Hard -- and we probably would think it was wack if we had never heard (or at least knew) that Pac wrote it.  But of course Pac stans cream over stuff like his verse on Got My Mind Made Up or when he used alliteration on If I Die 2Nite.

Meh, its the other way around in my mind. Biggie was the one who mastered flow. His lyrics aren't particularly complex at all. Pac used way more metaphors, similes and alliteration AND he actually said something doing it. Yeah he got lazy on some songs with the hennessey/enemies, but there's a lot of songs where he straight owns it.

I've never heard anyone from another music genre using multi-syllables to describe how lyrical an artist is. Singers don't care about the number of syllables period. That's someone internet rap fans came up with a few years back.

please tell me your fucking joking. The reason it's a thing in rap is because that's a defining trademark of the genre. If you truly think people on the internet came up with that shit, then I guess the god MC wasn't worth a damn thing then?

Complex Lyrics were always being praised, hell that was one of the main criticisms of the G-Funk Era.  The word play had been stripped of complexity for clarity, Despite the fact Snoop Dogg was at the time of his debut the biggiest rapper at the time, he garnered acclaim for his smooth flow, and was noted for his simplistic lyrics.  However that's always been the controversy, what makes a good MC, his lyrical abilities? his flow? subject matter? Charisma?

Then how come rappers like Chuck D and Ice Cube became great lyricists without being known for multi syllables? Lyricist isn't a rap term, there are great lyricists in every genre. And never has it been defined by how many multi-syllables an artist uses. If Pac ain't a lyricist, neither is Chuck D. And any real hip hop head would laugh at you if you went around saying Chuck D isn't a lyricist.

[DeeezNuuuts83]

Not as stupid as Em's tho. He goes overboard with the silly gay lines.

But the problem is that people will only focus on that, with no regard for the tons of crazy ass lyrics he has come up with over the span of the past fifteen years.  All of a sudden, all of those just go out of the window.  That's a bit ignorant, at the very least.

em has fruitfied the game, he put dressing up as a female on the map and now u have lil wayne and kanye wearing skirts and leggings lmao

And there's also that picture of Pac wearing a bikini bottom onstage when he was a back-up dancer for Digital Underground too.

Meh, its the other way around in my mind. Biggie was the one who mastered flow. His lyrics aren't particularly complex at all. Pac used way more metaphors, similes and alliteration AND he actually said something doing it. Yeah he got lazy on some songs with the hennessey/enemies, but there's a lot of songs where he straight owns it.

Really?  Pick apart Kick in the Door, that's definitely Biggie getting lyrical.  Pac may have used more of that shit but it was basic... "hustled like a crackfiend" and "get in that ass like a bikini" are similes but don't really scream creativity to me.

I've never heard anyone from another music genre using multi-syllables to describe how lyrical an artist is. Singers don't care about the number of syllables period. That's someone internet rap fans came up with a few years back.

The difference is that other genres outside of hip-hop don't focus so much on the lyrics themselves as much as the singing abilities of the artist, which is something that isn't really a big factor in hip-hop since they're not really singing.

Complex Lyrics were always being praised, hell that was one of the main criticisms of the G-Funk Era.  The word play had been stripped of complexity for clarity, Despite the fact Snoop Dogg was at the time of his debut the biggiest rapper at the time, he garnered acclaim for his smooth flow, and was noted for his simplistic lyrics.  However that's always been the controversy, what makes a good MC, his lyrical abilities? his flow? subject matter? Charisma?

Great point.  So while the 2000s had a lot more lyricism, with a lot of artists stepping their game up and a lot of the up-and-comers trying to follow in their footsteps, there were a lot of other rappers even in the mid-'90s like Big L getting lyrical, even by today's standards.

Then how come rappers like Chuck D and Ice Cube became great lyricists without being known for multi syllables? Lyricist isn't a rap term, there are great lyricists in every genre. And never has it been defined by how many multi-syllables an artist uses. If Pac ain't a lyricist, neither is Chuck D. And any real hip hop head would laugh at you if you went around saying Chuck D isn't a lyricist.

But look at the genre at that time.  So while there are cars now that cost $50,000 that would kill Ferraris from ten years ago, that doesn't downplay the Ferraris from years past.  They were great at that time, and are still good now, but the bar has been raised.  Hip-hop was still in development when Chuck D and Cube made names for themselves and hadn't even really established itself as a genre here to stay rather than being a fad.  They were renowned then (and also after the '80s), but on some lyrical shit, they'd get chewed up.  Say what you want, while Cube can still make good material, he's not going to fuck up emcees lyrically nowadays.  Common killed him on Bitch in Yoo, and that was in the '90s.  But the artform progresses.

Look at some of the earliest rap battles and how they dissed each other... "You're not number one, you're not even the best/ There's no way you're gonna win a real emcee contest."  Yeah, in the early '80s, that shit got people going nuts, but that shit would be corny if said today (or even ten years ago and Jay-Z and Nas went at each other), but again, that's not to take away the significance of those battles or to say that they weren't lyrical AT THEIR TIME.

[Blasphemy (A)]

XXL said it best, in their article about whether or not Pac was the greatest.  They said he had mastered flow, talking about how the way he rapped his lyrics and the energy and emotion put into how he presented them.  But as far as lyricism, Pac was generally average, with most rhymes being one, maybe two syllables (and the multi-syllabic ones were either simple or repetitive, like the Hennessy/enemies/remember me type of shit) with a lot of his metaphors and similes being very basic, for the most part.  Obviously a song like Me and My Girlfriend was a pretty dope concept, plus he was getting better toward the end of his life (as I personally always quote First to Bomb as proof), but his lyrics were mostly dope because he brought them to life.  His shit when rapped by other people just wasn't nearly as good -- i.e. Napolean rapping his verse on U Can Be Touched, Ja Rule rapping his lyrics on So Much Pain, C-Murder rapping his lyrics on On My Enemies, Snoop rapping his lyrics on Life's So Hard -- and we probably would think it was wack if we had never heard (or at least knew) that Pac wrote it.  But of course Pac stans cream over stuff like his verse on Got My Mind Made Up or when he used alliteration on If I Die 2Nite.

Meh, its the other way around in my mind. Biggie was the one who mastered flow. His lyrics aren't particularly complex at all. Pac used way more metaphors, similes and alliteration AND he actually said something doing it. Yeah he got lazy on some songs with the hennessey/enemies, but there's a lot of songs where he straight owns it.

I've never heard anyone from another music genre using multi-syllables to describe how lyrical an artist is. Singers don't care about the number of syllables period. That's someone internet rap fans came up with a few years back.

please tell me your fucking joking. The reason it's a thing in rap is because that's a defining trademark of the genre. If you truly think people on the internet came up with that shit, then I guess the god MC wasn't worth a damn thing then?

Complex Lyrics were always being praised, hell that was one of the main criticisms of the G-Funk Era.  The word play had been stripped of complexity for clarity, Despite the fact Snoop Dogg was at the time of his debut the biggiest rapper at the time, he garnered acclaim for his smooth flow, and was noted for his simplistic lyrics.  However that's always been the controversy, what makes a good MC, his lyrical abilities? his flow? subject matter? Charisma?

Then how come rappers like Chuck D and Ice Cube became great lyricists without being known for multi syllables? Lyricist isn't a rap term, there are great lyricists in every genre. And never has it been defined by how many multi-syllables an artist uses. If Pac ain't a lyricist, neither is Chuck D. And any real hip hop head would laugh at you if you went around saying Chuck D isn't a lyricist.

Hey that's just what I've read, of course a lot of the publications always had that east slant, like I've mentioned in early threads.  Me personally I think a great MC needs Charisma beyond anything else. Cause you could be a good lyrical motherfucker but if you don't got the Charisma you aint gonna have shit. I think Crooked I is a good example (Eat shit ferhat). Hes got good lyrics, good flow (for the most part) but his Charisma is lacking. Mean while you got peeps like Wiz Khalifa who are limited on concepts and lyrics but got more then enough charisma to make up for it. Snoop had it, Cube Had it, Ice Had it.  

The legends all had it.  Regardless of they lyrical skill/Flow.  If I had to choose between Makaveli or Slim I'd probably say Makaveli cause I Can relate to his music more so then Shadys, even though I can admit that ems word play, lyrics, and flow are better, and in terms of emotion can at times match tupacs. but yeah, like I said It's Charisma in the end that makes the artist great.

Some people prefer Illmatic to The Chronic, others is reverse. It all depends on your taste in the end. but if the MC don't got it, he aint gonna be shit in the end.

[Hack Wilson - real]

illmatic is for lyrics

chronic is for beats

[the synthesis]

Pacs delivery was his strongest point, more so than jay, nas, em..... his flow was good too, he did water it down after his second album, but his delivery improved at a result

Pac was able to to place great emphasis words, he'd rap from the pit of his stomach, so much energy and power

His used a lot of multi's, pac did use metaphors and double entendres when he needed to and when he did they'd most likely be very memorable/quotables

There is no better all round songmaker than Pac, he knew what he was doing when he got into the stuido, this guy was way ahead of his time, far too many classics and he was dead by 25

It all depends in what you look for in a MC, Rakim or a Chuck D or a Mc Hammer, end of the day if you can get on the mic and relate to the audience, move them in some way, whether it be by dancing, crying, laughing, or make them think then ur doing something right

Pac is the greatest all rounder IMO, he had just enough in each category to be regarded as the overall greatest

[Smackdog]

People can criticize Em for his faggy ass lyrics

[TraceOneInfinite]

I feel like every single bracket ever comes down to Em vs. Pac.

As it should. 

[TraceOneInfinite]

nice to see how bad Lil Wayne lost

[DblPen]

If you think the greatest rapper of all time is the one who has quotables such as "ill bisexually reck ya", "im out the closet i been lyin my ass off, all this time me and dre been fuckin with hats off", "bend over and take it like a slut, okay mom" then hiphop has been nothing short of a failure. If thats the case, Tyler the Creator > Nas. Lil B > Jay-Z.

Assuming that you like basketball, do you judge players like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant by their worst performances?

I'm sure we can find stupid lines by any rapper, if we look for them.

Not as stupid as Em's tho. He goes overboard with the silly gay lines. Anyway Nas>>Jay>>Big>>Pac>>>>>>>>Em. But Em and
pac have the two biggest stanbases in HipHop, so i guess it makes sense they are in the top two brackets

Why is ESPN doing this anyway? what would they know about hip hop?

any of those mentioned mc's has way more bullshit "gangsta" lyrics than eminem has goofy ones (and he has alot). If you ask nas or jay i bet they will tell you that Em is probably one of the most complete rappers ever

[Darkwing Duck (The Reincarnation)]

i disagree,
syllables shouldn't be a criteria if u want to evaluate a decent m.c.. its not necessarirly important,

rappers wit tons of syllables tend to be messy, n all over the place wit the bars. syllables are usually used by rappers who r havin a hard time coming up wit a poignant  flow, thats why they r riding on syllables.

i love Kool G Rap to death, but im thankful that rappers generally are leaning on punchlines and lyrics overall, instead of syllables n wordplay

my 2 cents

I think all these kind of polls are bullshit anyway, it always comes down to whos the most popular or who has the most fan base.

Hands down 2pac would win (or come in the top 3) of any kind of hip hop vote no matter what it was

no he wouldnt, every rapper from Death Row (except Daz), would eat him up in a battle, pre-written or off-the-dome.  i dont care how "charismatic" he is wit his loud screamy voice. Pac was never hiphop like that