It's June 14, 2024, 06:57:37 AM
In terms of impact, skill, sales, quality there is a tier 1 group consisting of 2Pac, Biggie, Eminem, Jay-Z and arguably Nas. These guys have the "full package". Massive impact, massive respect from other rappers, awesome skills, massive sales (with the possible exception of Nas, who was never THAT huge sales wise). This group of rappers is impossible to ignore on lists like these and I would probably question any top 10 that failed to include any of those five guys.Then there is an old-skool group of highly influential 80's rappers like Rakim, KRS-one, Melle Mel, etc. On the one hand one could argue that these guys deserve a spot, on the other hand the game has evolved a lot since their time, and they furthermore suffer from hip-hop primarily being an underground phenomenon in the 80's (at least compared to what it became in the 90's and 00's).Then there is a group of highly skilled rappers who for various reasons have had less of a cultural impact or commercial success, who you could argue belongs to the list solely based on skill level. From this group Kendrick Lamar is probably the most succesful and the one that is toughest to ignore for such a list.Then you have a group of rappers whose argument is mainly that they were enormously succesful. This includes rappers like 50 Cent, Lil Wayne, T.I., Ja Rule, Snoop Dogg, Dr.Dre (the rapper, not the producer) and a whole host of others, including even maligned names like MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. The problem with this bunch is that they aren't really that highly regarded as masters of the craft, but rather as really succesful "pop"-rappers.