Let's see what Davey D thinks...
A long held favorite past time within Hip Hop circles is to debate the skill set of our favorite icons. It's part and parcel of the culture as many of us have spent countless hours analyzing and over analyzing someone's rhyme flows, dance moves, album concepts, artwork etc.
Within these debates there are some universally held beliefs that rarely get challenged unless someone is deliberately trying to cause controversy and strike a nerve by going over the top. One such universal truth was broached this weekend, but this time the folks who presented it were serious which resulted in an all out heated debate unfolding. The topic centered around the issue of Hip Hop's all-time best emcee.
For years it didn't matter what brand of Hip Hop you embraced.
When it came to discussing the best emcee,
KRS-One and
Rakim always held the top spots.
Names like
Nas,
Jay-Z,
2Pac and
Biggie to name a few, were usually in people's top 5 or 10, but rarely did anyone come close be comparable to
the God and
The Teacha.
They had things on lock-hands down.
What I found over the years is that; the older the participant in these discussions, the more underground oriented people were and those who identified with New York style Hip Hop from the Golden era, tended to be more resolute about the universal acceptance of Rakim and KRS being Hip Hop's all-time best emcees.
There's no denying that both have changed the game. When it comes to KRS, his skills as a scar tested battle emcee and incredible performer has been unrivaled. A KRS show could go on for hours with him delivering hit after hit after hit that would leave the crowd exhausted because he just brings so much energy to the stage.
Rakim while not having the same hyped up stage presence, gets props because he has epitomized the essence of cool. His writing and his delivery is akin to the greatest of jazz players. Like I said those two emcees always held the top spots.
But as they say, nothing lasts forever, and so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I found myself involved in a heated debate this weekend with a hardened New Yorker and long-time Hip Hop head who were both insistent that the top spot now belongs to
Jigga Man aka
Jay-Z.
My boy
Mookie a Bronx born former emcee from the now defunct group
Red, Black & Green who used to roll with
King Sun, my other boy
Sean out of San Jose a long time fixture in the scene and myself, sat up watching the Laker game this Saturday while we had the debate of debates.
Mookie a long-time KRS fan kept extolling the virtues of Jay-Z, citing his long track record of consistent hit-making.
Both him and Sean talked emphatically about Jay's last album '
American Gangsta' as if it was some sort of landmark record that symbolized the start of a new era in Hip Hop. Mookie emphatically explained that his main beef with KRS is that over the past few years he's been in a slump where is last few albums have been 'wack' and lacking both musically and even lyrically.
The argument started off around the concept of having hit records. Mookie and Sean felt Jay-Z made his mark, while KRS had not. At that point I had to shut folks down and not allow them to measure an artists based solely on album sales and commercial success via radio play. If we did that we'd have to look at how much money and promotion have been behind a Jay-Z album and did his sales match up to the all the exposure.
I explained that KRS has a set of fans and Jay-Z has a set of fans. Jays fans may be the Hot 97/ commercial radio crowd while KRS may be the underground/ so called backpack crowd. My contention is that you have to look at an artist and take into account how he resonates with his base. KRS still sells out shows. KRS still connects with his audience at shows. Like Jay his catolgue of hit songs his deep.
Mookie and Sean argued that Jigga is a rapper's rapper, noting that Jay has managed to stay on top in the fickle, topsy turvy world of commercial Hip Hop which in many ways his harder. This is in sharp contrast to many commercial artists who are here today and gone tomorrow.
They maintained that Jay-Z has managed to consistently reinvent himself and stay relevant. They said he still delivers hits and garners respect from all corners. of the Hip Hop community. His flow has never gotten lazy. His albums are always on point. Mookie went so far as to praise Jay-Z for pushing the envelop by reaching out to experiment with new sounds and styles.
He didn't elaborate but my take was he was referencing Jay-Z hooking up with southern rappers like
UGK and Juvenile or west coast producers like
Rick Rock, or experimenting with the production of a young
Kanye West and before that, the then emerging
Neptunes.
Mookie and Sean kept saying the industry owes Jay a lot.
@ dis nikka saying 9 nikkaz on thecoli stan this nikka Hov more than that nikka's wife 
