pointproven214
i speak facts not emotions
krs-one imo.
Elite Eiht: LL Cool J vs. KRS-One
- Thread starter Wacky D
- Start date
no way.
krs hasnt been hot since like '97. LL was poppin before & after him. its not even close.
LL being more of a star put more scrutiny on him. thats why KRS can drop a ton of blah albums and not be criticized as much because nobody is paying attention anymore except his fans.
Not sure what you mean by hot, but I'm speaking on being dope. Kristyles was an album I liked and enjoyed a lot, Spiritual Minded has joints I regularly play, I enjoyed Adventures In EMCEEIN, Hip Hop Lives, Survival Skills, The BDP Album, Meta-Historical, Never Forget and others.
KRS has a solid audience, many of his songs are still getting 100's of thousands of views, in many cases closer to a million, he's still touring nationally and internationally, he's still highly revered and respected.
But anyway, many would argue KRS's BDP run alone surpasses LL, would be even more of a case for that if you included Return Of The Boom Bap and KRS-One.
In terms of being a star, LL is certainly historically the bigger star, he made more pop records no doubt, but in terms of MC'in, styles, concepts, content etc and most MC'in/musical aspects I'd say KRS is ahead, in many areas significantly ahead.
define a POP record.. Black music is Black music.. I dont get that. None of his albums were POP.
80's rappers toyed with more sounds than any era... Rock or Jazz etc...... but none of LL's shyt was POP. Pop is doing a song with the Eurythmics or George Michael...
POP lost its meaning somewhere
He's probably referring to songs like Hey Lover or Phenomenon. And didn't LL have a song that sampled George Michael? Instead of pop, you could say LL did softer joints for the ladies. I Need Love set the blueprint for that.
BmoreGorilla
Veteran
Its a tough one becuz both are among the few real true legends of hip hop but I went with KRS. He just had much more of an impact on MCs who came after him imo. Yes LL was hip hops first sex symbol but he was also getting dissed heavily at one point. KRS never had that issue. Dude was respected out the gate. Both are legendary battle rappers tho but I think KRS just had a bigger influence on the MCs who came up after him
yea but KRS is one of your favorite rappers tho. youre hot when people who arent particularly big fans are bumpin you. its been nearly 2 decades since krs has been in that space.
of course he still has a solid supportive audience and still tours. so does ll cool j. but theyre not doing all of this because of their modern releases.
LL can rap circles around krs if we want to be real here. i dont see how krs is a significantly better emcee at all.
content? that shouldnt even be a category. theres no such thing as better or worse content. that all comes down to preference.
theres nothing pop about "hey lover" or even wack ass "phenomenon".
those songs were urban.
They were soft joints. Call them pop or soft or whatever you want - but you get the idea.
But I don't think being "hot" on a mainstream level is indicative of quality, infact in many cases it's an indication of artistic compromise that makes the quality worsen.
That's true, the reason isn't cause of the modern releases, but he's performing the modern songs and getting great reactions from them. I saw some him performing a bunch of the 2013-2014 songs and also songs within the last few years it was ILL, really ill. Some of those songs like Hip Hop Lives for instance sound great at performances, a lot of people heard those records.
I don't agree with LL rapping circles around KRS at all, KRS is a lyricist but he's not just a lyricist, he's also a styles driven MC, MC'in factors in all different aspects, I include shyt like flow and I don't think LL has come near to the amount of dope flows and styles KRS-One has done, while he's done some.
I disagree about content, if we have 1 person rapping about rose petals all the time and the other about injustice and life lessons and game I'd pick the latter each time. And it matters A LOT what someone's talking about. In this area it's not even close, subject matter helps make someone more interesting and less redundant, it allows you to relate to the listener more by having diverse topics to speak about, allows you to come with different shyt sonically too. It also gives songs often more meaning and timeless quality if they are about timeless issues. Sound Of The Police for example, if he was talking about the sound of bluebirds on a sunny morning the song wouldn't have been as great as it was, it's the shyt he was saying in it that hit people also. So content is very important.
this is not what we basing the bulk of who better on.. LL got many albums. pointing out these 2 records is a huuuuuuge reach. HUGE
I was just replying to where you said...
"none of LL's shyt was POP"
Those records sound pop lol, could be a regular pop/Justin Beiber type record.
That's far from the only pop sounding songs I could have posted, just 2 of many.
Pop doesn't even mean bad, there's some of LL's more pop records I like, but I was just making the point that's how he maintained his longevity longer in the mainstream through more pop sounding records, not everybody wants to do that...