Rap fans—that is to say, people who are passionate and informed about the culture—tend to get into arguments with other rap fans. Debates are often sparked when one mischievous soul declaims their Favorite Rapper. Your favorite rapper is a personal preference, one that requires the most subjective defenses. If you’re rooting for the rookie of the year or a washed up veteran experiencing a career resurgence or someone no one has heard of as your favorite, then so be it. The choice is yours. (Got too many favorites to pick one? Here’s a test: If you logged onto Complex.com and saw that three new singles from your three favorite rappers had just dropped, whomever’s song you listened to first is your favorite rapper.)
The favorite rapper discussion is cool and all, but the coveted distinction in hip-hop is still being named the GOAT (Greatest of All Time). The GOAT discussion is reserved for the chosen few; no rookies or new jacks qualify. It’s strictly for the catalog artists, people who have shifted the culture in previously unmovable ways, artists whose music has permeated and resonated over an extended period of time. It’s rap’s imaginary Hall of Fame, existing only within the abstract conversations we have about it. Since it has to consider the entire canon of hip-hop, the discussion ought to be reserved for more refined debate among only the most informed parties.
But there is one debate that every rap fan not only loves to have, but ought to have. A debate that considers both the short-term and long-term implications of an artist’s impact. A debate that pits a rapper in their prime against any and all competitors. A debate that gawks at the cultural landscape and plucks out the one who stands alone: The debate about who is the Best Rapper Alive. Being the BRA is sort of like being the MVP—even though rap doesn’t follow a rigid cultural calendar quite like major sports seasons—because it only requires looking at the current crop of active artists and picking a winner. You can confidently declare the Best Rapper Alive in any given year without having to consider previous decades, the same way you can say LeBron is this year’s MVP even though you’ve never seen Jerry West play.
Anyone can become the Best Rapper Alive. Some came out the gate with next level rhymes that had everyone running back to the lab; for others it was a culmination of their gifts that coalesced for one great year. Much like rap itself, it’s an evolving process. But one thing we know for sure, it’s more about a general feeling among fans rather than any discernible facts. (What facts? It’s all just opinion anyway.) When a rapper steps in front of a microphone, and everyone in hip-hop has no choice but to look their way and give props, well then they just might be the Best Rapper Alive.
It’s still important to consider that the Best Rapper Alive debate is different from the GOAT conversation. Kobe has one MVP trophy, Steve Nash has two—but who, in their prime, would you rather have on your team? Being the BRA doesn’t mean you’re the biggest or the most successful; it just means you’re the Best at one particular moment. Of course in hip-hop, being the best is intrinsically about being BIG. And being at your best, doesn’t make you the best, so if your prime coincides with someone else’s, well, hey, there’s always next year.
You can look back on the hip-hop terrain with 20/20 hindsight, tally up the votes, and declare the GOATs, but the Best Rapper Alive from year to year is a feeling in the moment. There have been debates among rap fans living in that moment since the early days of hip-hop, but those discussions have never been properly cataloged—until now! (Yeah, we’re excited. Sue us.) Complex is proud to present The Best Rapper Alive, Every Year Since 1979, a comprehensive look back at every year of rap and which MC moved the crowd the most. So the question remains: Who got the props?
1979: GRANDMASTER CAZ
Credentials: The first person to DJ and rap simultaneously, raps were stolen for “Rapper’s Delight”
After experiencing one of DJ Kool Herc’s early hip-hop parties for the first time, Bronx-born Curtis Fisher got himself two turntables and a mic and adopted the name Casanova Fly. Hailed as the first to rap and DJ simultaneously, he earned the title Grandmaster Caz and became the standout member of the legendary Cold Crush Brothers, rocking countless park jams, recording singles for the Tuff City label, and battling the Fantastic Five in the seminal hip-hop movie, Wild Style.
Yet despite all these accomplishments, Caz’s biggest claim to fame is being the man whose lyrics were jacked by Big Bank Hank for The Sugarhill Gang’s.
1980: KURTIS BLOW
Credentials: “The Breaks”
In 1980 Kurtis Blow wasn’t just the best rapper alive, he was the first rapper to show and prove that a career in rap was even possible. Blessed with a booming, elastic, singsong voice, he became the first MC to sign with a major label in 1979—hot on the heels of the “Rappers Delight” phenomenon—and dropped the hit single “Christmas Rappin’.”
He came right back with a self-titled debut album the following year, powered by “The Breaks,” which became the first gold single in rap history. Blow’s exuberant flow on the cut still thrills three decades later. He would continue to be a force in hip-hop, touring the world, producing, and acting, but this was the year when it first came together for him.
Honorable Mentions: Spoonie Gee, Kool Moe Dee, Jimmy Spicer
Harlem native Spoonie Gee’s fresh rhymes on “Spoonin’ Rap” contained the first references to jailhouse life in rap music, including the invaluable advice “Please my brother, don’t drop the soap.” As the standout member of the Treacherous Three, Kool Moe Dee distinguished himself on cuts like “Love Rap,” “New Rap Language,” and “Body Rock.” Brooklyn rapper Jimmy Spicer’s “Adventures of Super Rhyme (Rap)” gave him enough clout to become one of the first artists signed to Russell Simmons’ Rush Management. Simmons would co-produce his future hits “The Bubble Bunch” and “Money (Dollar Bill Y’All)
1981: KOOL MOE DEE
Credentials: Bodied Busy Bee at the Harlem World Christmas Rappers’ Convention
Long before he became a solo star on the strength of Teddy Riley–produced joints like “Wild Wild West” and “How Ya Like Me Now,” MC Kool Moe Dee was one third of the legendary Treacherous Three, along with Special K and LA Sunshine (not to mention DJ Easy Lee). Born Mohandas Dewese in Manhattan, Moe was a quiet character who channeled his passion into carefully crafted rhymes.
At age 19 he devastated the renowned party rapper Busy Bee Starski at the Harlem World Christmas Rappers’ Convention in a performance that is often cited as the first hip-hop battle. The relentless routine opened with “Come on Busy Bee I don’t mean to be bold/But put that bom-ditty-bom bullshit on hold.” Things only went downhill from there as Moe Dee clowned Busy’s formulaic rhymes and served notice that from this moment forward MCs would have to step up their lyrical game.
1981 also saw the Treacherous Three drop hits like “Feel The Heartbeat” and “Put the Boogie In Your Body,” marking a creative apogee for the trio. Although the group broke up after appearing in the 1984 movie Beat Street, Kool Moe Dee’s career endured until the early ’90s and he never lost his taste for battling. His long-running feud with LL Cool J inspired some memorable lyrical exchanges.
Honorable Mentions: Love Bug Starski, T Ski Valley, Sha Rock
When he wasn’t spinning records at Harlem’s Rooftop Roller Rink, Lovebug was laying down raps. His record “Positive Life” with the Harlem World Crew set him head and shoulders above all comp not named Kool Moe Dee. T Ski Valley got his start DJing with the Erotic Brothers Disco and eventually became an MC; his classic 1981 single “Catch the Beat” can still rock any party. Sha-Rock was the not-so-secret weapon of the Funky 4 + 1. Every time she rocked the mix, the feisty Bronx MC outshone her male counterparts.
1982: MELLE MEL
Credentials: “The Message”
If you see modern-day Melle Mel out in New York City rocking a powder blue tuxedo with long tails and calling himself “Muscle Simmons,” you might not suspect that this is the same dude who rhymed the immortal words “Don’t push me, ’cause I’m close to the edge.” Back in 1982 Mel was a member of The Furious Five along with his brother Kidd Creole (Nathaniel Glover), Scorpio (Eddie Morris), Rahiem (Guy Todd Williams), and Cowboy (Keith Wiggins).
When they weren’t ripping park jams and rec centers with DJ Grandmaster Flash, they were dropping hit records like “Super Rappin,’” “The Birthday Party,” and “It’s Nasty (Genius of Love)” for labels like Enjoy and Sugar Hill Records. But when Melle Mel turned his attention to the realities of life in the Bronx during the Reagan era, he created a groundbreaking hip-hop classic called “The Message.”
Honorable Mentions: Kool Moe Dee, Grandmaster Caz, T Ski Valley
Kool Moe Dee’s rhymes on The Treacherous Three’s “Yes We Can Can” proved that he was still not the one to fuck with. Grandmaster Caz caught wreck on the Cold Crush Brothers joint “Weekend,” and T Ski Valley took it back to his Erotic Brothers Disco days on the NSFW “Sexual Rapping.”
1983: RUN
Credentials: “It’s Like That / Sucker MCs”
It’s difficult to overstate the impact of Run-DMC on the trajectory of hip-hop. Put it like this: The release of the 12-inch single “It’s Like That” / “Sucker MCs” on Profile Records completely changed the game. The A side picked up where “The Message” left off, talking about real life struggles of real people. But where Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five’s story ended in tragedy, with a body used and abused and hanging dead in a cell—the artists themselves being harassed by cops—”It’s Like That” was defiant and resilient.
War, crime, poverty, prejudice, ignorance, the bum eating out of a garbage can who once was your man? Run’s response was as cold and hard as the streets of Hollis, Queens: “Don’t ask me because I don’t know why.” And what about a solution? “Money is the key to end all your woes your ups your downs your highs and your lows/Won’t you tell me last time love bought your clothes?”
These words defined rap’s new world order, a cold hard cash philosophy that would prevail through Puffy’s “All About The Benjamins” moment and remains unabated in this era of Young Money Cash Money Business. But Run-DMC also tempered this approach with advice to get educated, motivated, and avoid prejudice and bias. These were big ideas for a rap record, but side B of this epic single was arguably more significant.
“Sucker MCs (Krush Groove 1)” was a stylistic broadside against all forms of wackness. “Two years ago a friend of mine asked me to say some MC rhymes,” Joseph “Run” Simmons intoned and suddenly the entire old school was swept away. Before long he was enjoying “Champagne, caviar, and bubble bath” even though he’d prefer to “Cold chill at a party in a B-boy stance.” Run dispensed with all sucker MCs remorselessly: “So take that and move back catch a heart attack.” And while Darryl “DMC” McDaniels and Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizell were indisputably dope, there was also no disputing the fact that at the end of the day this was Run’s house.
Honorable Mentions: Melle Mel, Jimmy Spicer, Rammellzee
Call him old school if you must, but Melle Mel was still handling his business in ’83. The Furious Five’s “New York New York” was a streetwise classic while “White Lines” remains the group’s most modern-sounding record. Spitting cautionary tales of cocaine addiction over the beat from Liquid Liquid’s “Cavern,” Mel’s booming baritone made a powerful case for his continued relevance.
Meanwhile, as Run-DMC proclaimed the cash money gospel, another Rush Management client, BK’s own Jimmy Spicer rapped about the power of “Money (Dollar Bill Y’all)” and scored the biggest hit of his career, as well as one of the year’s freshest records.
Rammellzee was more of a graf legend than an MC, but in 1983 he and K-Rob created “the holy grail of rap records.” Rammellzee had a bone to pick with Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was a much more celebrated artist at the time. “Beat Bop” was originally planned to be cathartic a battle on wax, but in the end Basquiat did not rhyme on the record (although he did pay for the studio time and created the cover art). The far-out limited-edition single became an underground sensation and set the stage for the futuristic avant-garde expressions of hip-hop artists ranging from The Beastie Boys to Dr Octagon and MF Doom.
1984: RUN
Credentials: Run-DMC
If the “It’s Like That / Sucker MCs” single was the warning shot, the release of Run-DMC’s self-titled debut album emptied the full clip. The nine-track tour de force announced that these three teenagers from Hollis, Queens were rewriting the rules of the rap game, stripping the music down to its elements: a pair of MCs who worked in perfect synch with one untouchable DJ.
Joseph “Run” Simmons got his start in hip-hop DJing for Kurtis Blow. He got the gig thanks to his older brother Russell, who managed Blow. Known as DJ Run, “Kurtis Blow’s Disco Son,” Run began to MC and honed his skills by battling with Blow. He would sometimes record the sessions and send them to his friend Darryl “DMC” McDaniels. Run later emerged as the leader of the group, although what made Run-DMC work was the way they all gelled into a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts.
There were no outlandish get-ups or gimmicky routines, just rock hard beats (courtesy of Russell Simmons and Larry Smith, with electric guitars by Eddie Martinez) and rhymes that spoke clearly and distinctly about real life in a way that the new generation of rap fans had never heard blasting out of their radios before.
With their black Lee jeans and matching jackets, unlaced adidas sneakers, and zero-fucks-given body language, Run-DMC looked as if they had just rolled off Linden Boulevard. No matter how successful they got, they never lost that attitude, taking it with them as they stepped on stages and broke down barriers for hip-hop culture all around the world.
Run put it best in “Rock Box,” which became first rap video to air on MTV, “My name is Joseph Simmons but my middle name’s Lord/And when I’m rockin’ on the mic, you should all applaud.”
Honorable Mentions: LL Cool J, Kurtis Blow, Roxanne Shante
When James Todd Smith said “I Need a Beat” anybody with ears could tell he meant business. This ground-breaking 12″ single on Def Jam Records, produced by NYU student Rick Rubin, announced the arrival of an urgent 16-year-old voice that would soon take over. Kurtis Blow was a veteran by this time, but singles like “8 Million Stories” proved that he was still very much a force to be reckoned with. And 15-year-old Lolita Shante Gooding from the Queensbridge projects caught the whole rap world napping with “Roxanne’s Revenge,” her freestyledresponse to UTFO’s “Roxanne Roxanne.” Her song brought battle rap to the radio, set new standards for female MCs, and set off a whole chapter of hip-hop history known as the “Roxanne Wars.”
1985: LL COOL J
Credentials: Radio
Def Jam’s first hip-hop superstar was a charismatic 17-year-old from Queens named James Todd Smith, better known as LL Cool J (shorthand for Ladies Love Cool James.) Ladies might have dug his debut album Radio—it was an instant success, both critically and commercially, eventually selling well over a million copies—but at this stage his music was aimed mostly at a male audience. “LL Cool J is hard as hell,” he roared on “Rock The Bells,” adding (over Rick Rubin’s obnoxiously abrasive beat) that he’d “battle anybody I don’t care who you tell.” This was no idle boast, as he would engage in a long-running war of words with Kool Moe Dee, among others. Double L’s was the most urgent and authentic voice in hip-hop that year. Whatever his rhymes may have lacked in complexity they more than made up for with heaping portions of b-boy bravado.
A careful listen to the album’s title cut reveals that it’s about much more than just bigging up boom boxes. The song’s narrator starts out as a youth who enjoys the simple pleasure “Walking down the street to a hardcore beat/While my JVC vibrates the concrete.” You’ve got to admire the kid’s spirit as he runs from the subway cops to avoid a summons and purchases fresh batteries when his tape will no longer rewind. We learn that his story is tough, his neighborhood is rough, yet he still sports gold and he’s “out to crush.”
Later on in this semi-autobiographical tune, LL makes the jump from fandom to fame, becoming the artist whose voice booms through the radio. His days of pounding the pavement are over as we see him riding in a Cadillac with the system kickin’ way past 10. “I drive up the Ave with my windows closed, and my bass is so loud it could rip your clothes.” By the next verse of this raps to riches story, he’s cold getting paid “Cause Rick said so.” When LL said “I’m the leader of the show, keeping you on the go” you’d best believe it, because in 1985 no rap fan could live without LL on their radio.
Honorable Mentions: Run, Beastie Boys, Slick Rick
The title of Run-D.M.C.’s sophomore LP, King of Rock, revealed this Queens trio’s grand ambitions. They dared to compare rap, an upstart ghetto music that many dismissed as a novelty or worse, with the exalted pop culture phenom that was rock and roll circa 1985. (At the same time they were reaching out to other subgenres, as on “Roots Rap Reggae,” featuring Jamaican dancehall star Yellowman.)
Meanwhile The Beastie Boys were starting to build momentum on the strength of 12-inch singles like “Rock Hard” and “She’s On It.” Although the group’s breakthrough release “Hold It Now, Hit It” would not drop until the following year, their infectiously anarchic energy was winning new fans every day, and while the trio’s chemistry made them inseparable, Adam “MCA” Yauch was emerging as the group’s standout MC.
Slick Rick was going by the name MC Ricky D when he joined forces with human beatbox Doug E. Fresh on a madcap live recording called “La-Di-Da-Di,” which was released on the flip side of a single called “The Show.” The record went on to become one of the most sampled in rap history, establishing Rick as a phenomenal lyricist who would neither cause trouble nor bother anybody. He and Doug were “just some men that’s on the mic,” but as the song both showed and proved “when we rock the microphone we rock the mic right.”
1986: KRS-ONE
Credentials: “South Bronx”
What MC wouldn’t want to be dubbed the “Best Rapper Alive”? But pinning that title on Kris Parker, a.k.a. KRS-One (an acronym for Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone), seems like damning him with faint praise. KRS was never just a rapper—right from the start he was a renegade teacher and scholar, a satirist, polemicist and most of all, the Blastmaster. As such, his lyrics were tools of war, which he kept sharpened to a lethal edge.
KRS was living at a Bronx homeless shelter when he met Scott Sterling, a.k.a. DJ Scott LaRock, who worked there as a counselor. KRS was also an MC and graf writer known for battling other residents at the shelter. Scott was sufficiently impressed that he would slide the 20-year-old passes that allowed him to go out and catch live rap shows from time to time. Before they collaborated on their monumental 1987 debut album, Criminal Minded, with beats supervised by Ced Gee of Ultramagnetic MCs, KRS and Scott LaRock dropped a 12” single called “South Bronx” (“Fresh for ’86 you suckers!”). This song was provocative enough to set off an epic inter-borough musical conflict known as “The Bridge Wars,” and also set KRS above and beyond all lyrical competition in that particular year.
It all started with MC Shan’s song “The Bridge,” which big upped the borough of Queens, specifically the Queensbridge housing projects. Filled with local pride, Shan asserted that the Bridge played a vital role in the birth and evolution of hip-hop—and he had a point, since it was home to Marley Marl and the mighty Juice Crew. Nevertheless, the song provoked KRS, who proudly repped for the Bronx in a hip-hop masterpiece set to a shrill, staccato beat and raps that hit home like blunt force trauma. “Party people in the place to be KRS-One attacks…” he rhymed in the first verse before going in for the kill: “So you think that hip-hop got its start out in Queensbridge?/If you popped that junk up in the Bronx you might not live.”
Vacillating between Blastmaster and teacher mode, KRS worked a lengthy hip-hop history lesson into the second verse, shouting out such luminaries as Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash—among others—and evoking memories of jams in Cedar Park and Bronx River where the amps were powered by electricity jacked from lamp posts. But before long KRS brought it back to the battle. “As odd as it looked, as wild as it seemed/I didn’t hear a peep from a place called Queens.”
Shan had no choice but to respond to KRS’s devastating attack, releasing a song called “Kill That Noise,” but he was only falling further into BDP’s trap. Soon thereafter Scott and Kris returned fire with a reggae-flavored war chant called “The Bridge Is Over” that was an undisputed lyrical TKO. KRS remains a hip-hop icon to this day, but in 1986 there was simply no denying the fact that he was the best rapper alive.
Honorable Mentions: Run, Too $hort, Schoolly D
The mighty Run-DMC movement continued unabated with the Queens trio’s third and best-selling album, Raising Hell, which contained “Walk This Way,” a historic collaboration with the rock band Aerosmith. At the end of the day Run’s raps still led the way.
After flooding the streets of Oakland with singles on the independent 75 Girls label, Too $hort inked a deal with Jive Records and released Born To Mack, which was eventually certified gold, proving that regional pimp rap could move big numbers nationwide. (Jive elected to leave its logo off the album for years. See industry Rule #4080.)
Meanwhile in Philadelphia Schoolly D revealed a whole new world with a sinister jam called “PSK What Does It Mean?” (dedicated to Philly’s Park Side Killers) released on a 12-inch backed with “Gucci Time.” Though “gangsta rap” is usually considered a West Coast thing, Schoolly’s pioneering crime narratives developed in parallel with BDP’s, proving that brothers were getting paid by all means necessary all over the country.
1987: RAKIM
Credentials: Paid In Full
On Kendrick Lamar’s “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe” remix featuring Jay Z, the Compton native speaks of “trying to be the God MC.” Of course he knows full well that the title will always belong to Rakim Allah, who married unprecedented lyrical and rhythmic sophistication with Five Percent Nation philosophy to become a supernova within the hip-hop cosmos.
By 1986 the 18-year-old former high school quarterback had recorded “Eric B Is President,” an awe-inspiring ode to his DJ that introduced the R’s fully formed style: a relaxed but relentless flow coupled with never-before-seen lyrical precision and metaphysical depth. That single got him signed to Island Records, and in 1987 Eric B. & Rakim released their classic debut, Paid in Full.
More than just a rapper, Rakim proudly proclaimed himself to be a writer. Not only were his lyrics simply too complex to be freestyles, but he broke down his meticulous methodology in his songs like “My Melody”: “I’m not a regular competitor, first rhyme editor/Melody arranger, poet, etcetera…” Elsewhere in the song he goes further: “I wouldn’t a came and said my name and run some weak shit/Puttin’ blurbs and slurs and words that don’t fit/In a rhyme, why waste time on the microphone?/I take this more serious than just a poem/Rockin’ party to party, backyard to yard/I tear it up y’all and bless the mic for the gods.”
“We knew Rakim was the terse ninja Miles to Chuck D’s booming and prolix Coltrane,” wrote Greg Tate. “Or maybe that was the Buddha to Chuck’s revolutionary Jesus.” Rakim kept critics reaching for superlatives as he and Eric B. returned in ’88 with their sophomore album Follow the Leader, but by that time there was so much dazzling innovation going on in hip-hop that others laid claim to the title of Best Rapper Alive. Or maybe it just felt that way because Rakim’s otherworldly artistry had taken him to the furthest reaches of the cosmos, where light and sound take longer to reach planet earth and mere mortals can only do their best to play catch up as they follow the leader.
Rakim’s influence remains enormous. Not only was he A$AP Rocky’s namesake, it’s impossible to imagine Nas making Illmatic without inspiration from the God MC. Perhaps he put it best on “My Melody” when he said “I’m number one, competition is none/I’m measured with the heat that’s made by sun.”
Honorable Mentions: KRS-One, LL Cool J, Kool Moe Dee
Just in case the title of Boogie Down Production’s debut album Criminal Mindeddidn’t get the point across, KRS-One and Scott LaRock posed on the front cover with enough artillery to stage a coup d’etat. The album brought a new militancy to hip-hop, as well as crack-era verite lyrics on brain-scalding songs like “9MMGoes Bang” and “P Is Free.” Soon after BDP’s debut album, Scott LaRock would be murdered in the Bronx while trying to mediate a street dispute, leaving KRS to soldier on and rebuild the crew.
On his sophomore album for Def Jam LL Cool J came back Bigger and Deffer. And while his B-boy snarl was impressive on “I’m Bad” and his DJ got busy on “Go Cut Creator Go,” it was the groundbreaking hip-hop ballad “I Need Love” that positioned him for a new phase in his career and reaffirmed why Ladies Love Cool J.
That same year old-school veteran Kool Moe Dee proved he had staying power when he linked with producer Teddy Riley for the biggest-selling album of his career, “How Ya Like Me Now,” which saw the veteran MC revitalized by Riley’s New Jack Swing drum patterns. On the strength of this success, he would become the first rapper to perform on TV during the Grammy Awards.
1988: SLICK RICK
Credentials: The Great Adventures of Slick Rick
Goddamn, 1988 was a good year for hip-hop. Too good, really. Or at least too good to distil for a list like this. So many great voices emerged, saying so many compelling, literally world-changing, genre-shifting things. But only one of them said it the slickest. And his name was Rick. Slick Rick. Or MC Ricky Dee, the Ruler if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.
In 1988, the English expat—who’d achieved notoriety three years prior as a member of Doug E Fresh’s Get Fresh Crew, performing raps on the classic 12″ “The Show” b/w “La Di Da Di”—released his platinum debut, The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, and vaulted himself to rap’s pole position (no Magic City). Though Rick had been an obviously able lyricist on his earlier work, and stood out thanks to his English accent, the mix of intricate, and often hilarious narratives with stone-cold shit talking that he unleashed on the LP was absolutely unprecedented.
His stories were rich, oscillating between cartoons with morals, like “Children’s Story,” and ridiculous slices of life, like “The Moment I Feared.” And his swag? He had so much swag it would make you want to kill yourself. Or at least “Lick The Balls,” as he invites all crab rappers to do on the song of the same name. Perhaps most groundbreaking, though, was his introduction to hip-hop of the alter ego on the NYC nightclub classic “Mona Lisa,” in which he suggests that Slick Rick and MC Ricky Dee are separate people. This archetype would be explored at length by acolytes like Redman, Biggie Smalls, Eminem, and even T.I.
And so, despite the almost slapstick silliness of the LP, which, on the heels of Public Enemy dropping their pivotal It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back(interestingly also produced by the Bomb Squad) gave it a remarkably dated feel, there is simply no denying that when TGAOSR dropped on May 2, 1988, no one on earth could outrap Slick Rick.
Honorable Mentions: Chuck D, Ice Cube, Big Daddy Kane
1988 was Public Enemy’s year. There is no way around it. It Takes A Nation Of Millions exploded louder than a bomb and changed the direction of rap for at least three full years after its release. But it wasn’t all about Chuck D. It was about the idea. It was about the group. It was about the message. It was about the noise. And yes, Chuck brought all of the above. Chuck has one of the greatest voices in rap history. But still, despite all of the accolades you can give him during that period, he just wasn’t the top lyricist.
Ice Cube also punched listeners in the face that year on N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton. He barreled over the tracks with force and passion, and proved that people outside of New York could compete. That said, what his rhymes had in chutzpah they lacked in polish or depth.
And then there was Big Daddy Kane. Emerging from Marley Marl’s Juice Crew, the Brooklyn MC had a smooth confidence as he nonchalantly spit the most intricate bars he could write. His first album only teased his greatness, but his ascent was obvious. And impending.
1989: BIG DADDY KANE
Credentials: It’s a Big Daddy Thing
Before Jay Z and Biggie Smalls, Brooklyn’s Finest was Big Daddy Kane. In fact, the Bedford-Stuyvesant native, born Antonio Hardy, was more than just an influence on both of these future Best Rapper Alive title holders. Kane’s DJ, Mr. Cee, recorded Biggie’s first demo, which got him written up in the “Unsigned Hype” column of The Source, which in turn brought him to the attention of Puff Daddy. And during the early 1990s, Jay Z and Positive K toured with Kane, performing during his costume changes.
Unfortunately, while Biggie and Jay Z remain household names to most rap fans, BDK’s prodigious lyrical skills have been somewhat obscured by the mists of time. A master of syncopated speed rap, Kane got his start in ’84, writing rhymes for his friend Biz Markie and later joining Marley Marl’s Juice Crew, releasing his debut single, “Raw,” on Cold Chillin’ Records in 1987. His 1988 album, Long Live the Kane included the smash single “Ain’t No Half Steppin’,” and that same year he killed his verse on Marley’s legendary posse cut “The Symphony.” But it was Kane’s follow-up album It’s a Big Daddy Thing, that cemented his status as a bonafide hip-hop icon. On cuts like “Smooth Operator,” the tall, dapper. dark-skinned MC, sometimes known as Count Macula, made the ladies melt like Hershey’s kisses in a microwave.
The album’s standout cut was the faster-paced “Warm It Up Kane” on which King Asiatic Nobody’s Equal lets loose a fusillade of rapid-fire repartee that left no question who was the best rapper alive at that moment: “Come get some you little bum/I take the cake and you can’t get a crumb/From the poetic, authentic, superior/Ultimate and all that good shit.” Yes, Kane could rap circles around anybody, making rival MCs “tumble and stumble, in a rumble just crumble.” Best of all he could do all this and then add “I’m still calm and humble”—or at least relatively humble, all things considered.
Honorable Mentions: Chuck D, the D.O.C., Kool G Rap
A year after the phenomenal impact of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us BackPublic Enemy kept the pressure on with “Fight the Power.” The incendiary soundtrack cut proved that Chuck D had lost none of his power to get pulses pounding and transform rap music into a political force.
Texas Native the D.O.C. was blessed with one of the greatest voices in hip-hop, which he first deployed with the Fila Fresh Crew, and later with N.W.A. His debut album on Ruthless Records, Nobody Does It Better marked a high point in a career that was tragically derailed when an automobile accident damaged his voice, although his pen game remained strong and he wrote rhymes for Death Row during The Chronic era.
Another contender for the title that year was the Juice Crew’s hardest hard-rock, Kool G Rap, whose album with DJ Polo Road to the Riches was one of the less celebrated gems of that amazing year. No matter what Jay Z says, there was nothing quite like hearing G Rap in his prime.
1990: ICE CUBE
Credentials: AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted
Soon after his acrimonious split with N.W.A, O’Shea Jackson, better known as Ice Cube, knew he had to make a solo album. At first he reached out to Dr. Dre, who reportedly wanted to work with him, but Eazy-E and Ruthless Records boss Jerry Heller nixed that idea. So Cube linked with the Bomb Squad—the production team behind Public Enemy—who delivered the high-energy funk while Cube dug deep into his lyric books and created a classic.
The rhymes on Amerikkka’s Most Wanted went beyond gangster life and dug into the underbelly of American apartheid. This was the record that predicted the L.A. riots two years before they happened. There is also a lot of talk about “selling out” and a tension between mainstream pop culture and hip-hop that now feels anachronistic but was obviously a very real concern at the time. (Though the star of family-friendly flicks like Are We There Yet? appears to have made peace with those issues now.) The album received almost no radio play and still went platinum because Cube was talking that shit the streets needed to hear.
Hip-hop was going through labor pains. A rebirth was at hand, another quantum leap that would rewrite all the rules yet again. The ’90s would see G-funk becoming pop music, Bad Boys wearing shiny suits, and rock dealers rising to become America’s new Rockefellers. But on May 16, 1990, rap was still underground rebel music. And at this moment in time “The Nigga Ya Love to Hate” was the most important rapper on the planet.
Honorable Mentions: LL Cool J, Chuck D, Grand Puba
After the first misstep of his young career—an ill-advised album called Walking With A Panther—LL Cool J linked with Marley Marl and started rhyming like he had a chip on his shoulder. “Don’t call it a comeback!” he roared on “Mama Said Knock You Out” and on “The Booming System” Cool J erased all doubts that he was still hard as hell.
Meanwhile Fear of a Black Planet saw Chuck D urging his audience to “Fight the Power” and even encouraging them with songs like “Brothers Gonna Work It Out.” It was PE’s last masterpiece, a glory to behind.
At the same time Brand Nubian brought Five Percent Nation mathematics back to the forefront of hip-hop, and none did it more effectively than the effervescently slick-tongued Grand Puba, who had also been the standout of his last group, Masters of Ceremony. After the triumphant album All For One, he parted company with Lord Jamar and Sadat X, but when they were together they were louder than a bomb.
repost : from complex magazine