Good point! I'd say Jay-Z 10 years, Wayne 5 years and Eminem all day every day the better rapper between him and Kayne. I think Kayne is overrated and a punk.

 

"Its Kanye but some of my plastics still say Kayne."

Kanye may be an egotistical punk but he is an extremely gifted individual and far from overrated.

I'm personally not a big fan of Kanye's music at all. And I rarely listen to Jay-Z, althought I respect his work and what he's accomplished. I definitely enjoy Lil Wayne and absolutely love Eminem.

 

And this is all coming from someone who doesn't really listen to a lot of rap.

Kanye comparing himself to Hitler and Michael Jordan...

 

http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/08/kanye-west-people-look-at-me-like-im-hitler/?hpt=hp_bn5

Kanye comparing himself to Hitler and Michael Jordan...

 

http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/08/kanye-west-people-look-at-me-like-im-hitler/?hpt=hp_bn5

 

He is an idiot but he makes some good music.

Kanye's lame. Total pop sensation and horrible for hip hop. Given he had some good stuff as a producer and on his first solo album, but after that he let his ego and head get the best of him. No way Kanye needs to be in the discussion of most influential rappers. Most media savy and twitterific, maybe. Most influential, not for miles, not to me at least, I think he sucks.

 

 

 

 

Eminem has been discussed a lot, and I'll say this. Eminem lyrically is one of the best there has ever been. He has his own style and own way and if it wasn't for that he would have never made it. Eminem was the ground breaker and opened the door for a slew of white rappers to try and make it into the biz. Lately the white rapper surge is hitting its peak as guys like Yelawolf, Mac Miller and MGK are blowing up. Thats not counting all the horrible white rap like Asher Roth, Mickey Avalon and Bubba Sparxxx who came out to be sucessful financially all the while putting out horrible stuff. Without Eminem none of those even have a chance. Now its soooo much easier for a white rapper to make it all the way compared to 15-20 years ago, look no further than Slim Shady for the reason why its easier now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm a stern music critic and I am very picky about my musical taste. I hate commercialized music, and I hate stuff thats fabricated in a label board room instead of created in a tiny room with a set of headphones and a heart filled with ambition. To earn my respect in the music industry (regardless of genre) the artist has to stay true to themselves and contain some substance. Theres nothing that turns me off more than arrogant, self absorbed fakers who are all about selling out and making a buck. Eminem is a guy who has stayed true to who he is and where he came from and that is a guy I can get behind, support, and credit for being influential. Kanye not so much.

 

So with that said I have to say this. Not too many people know, even some of our close friends, but me and a couple of my friends are in the process of running a full blown legit music studio. We have spent thousands on recording equipment and we have everything you need to have a legit set up. Right now we are in the process of putting the finishing touches on everything and working the kinks out of all the recording and mixing software. The studio building is almost complete so we are about ready to do the walls with acoustic pads and move all the equipment and get it set up. As some of you all know I am from Eastern Kentucky, Pike County. I lived in Lexington/Richmond for a few years, but I was born and raised in the mountains and I reside there now. My friends all hail from the Pike County area as well. We all started out just messing around with the hip hop thing for the fun of it, but after a couple of us got better than expected we decided to go through with the studio idea. When I was around Lexington I had a couple of friends who were dead serious about rapping, I mean they were inner city kids (one from Brooklyn, one from Houston, one from Cali) and they had the right look. One actually has his own album out now with a label. I was around them all the time when they would freestyle or mess around and I promise that some of the stuff a couple of my friends here are doing now is stuff that blows anything those guys used to do out of the water. Only difference is we are a bunch of country boys from the hills and not inner city. On skill alone though, my friends here are way better than those guys ever wanted to be.

 

So I say that to say this. Without Eminem there would be no way, no chance, not even a thought about doing what we are doing (going through with the studio project). However, because Eminem opened up the door, and because so many other light skinned rappers are making it into the biz nowadays it is actually possible for us to be doing this. Again we are more less just doing it for the fun of it, we have no real hopes and dreams of making it big. BUT, we do plan to do it right and actually put a lot of hard work and production value into it. We have our sites set for at least one of us to have an album recorded within the next year or two. If any thing we do ever has minimal success or minimal play it is significant because what it shows is how influential an artist like Eminem truly is. When you have country white boys from the mountains of Eastern Kentucky legitimately trying to rap/record their own stuff, and on top of that actually have some talent.....thats saying something.

Kanye's lame. Total pop sensation and horrible for hip hop. Given he had some good stuff as a producer and on his first solo album, but after that he let his ego and head get the best of him. No way Kanye needs to be in the discussion of most influential rappers. Most media savy and twitterific, maybe. Most influential, not for miles, not to me at least, I think he sucks.

His ego may be huge, but My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of the most ambitious and daring hip-hop albums ever. Kanye was able to mesh all the elements from his previous works into a truly great album. Lyrically I think it's a fascinating look at self-reflection and what it means to be a celebrity (specifically a black one), good and bad. To dismiss it shows an unwillingness to forgo personal bias. And it's completely foolish to say, "most influential, not for miles".

Eminem might be more technically skilled as a rapper, but I feel like Kanye's production techniques on his records and the overall quality of his tracks have had a remarkable amount of influence on the industry already and that his influence will only continue to grow. Subjectively speaking, I feel like I get a lot more out of a Kanye track than I do out of an Eminem track.

Very well said and I like Eminem quite a bit.

His ego may be huge, but My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of the most ambitious and daring hip-hop albums ever. Kanye was able to mesh all the elements from his previous works into a truly great album. Lyrically I think it's a fascinating look at self-reflection and what it means to be a celebrity (specifically a black one), good and bad. To dismiss it shows an unwillingness to forgo personal bias. And it's completely foolish to say, "most influential, not for miles".

 

I have downloaded that album, and also have every other Kanye album. I have tried to give them all their fair shake and College Dropout is the only Kanye album I can get behind. When Kanye put the last album out its all I heard about for the first two weeks, I finally downloaded it and tried to give it a whirl, just wasn't for me. His direction for the path of hip hop and mine are not the same. I appreciate the innovation but IMO he is hurting the hip hop game more than he is helping. But its all just a matter of opinion.

I have downloaded that album, and also have every other Kanye album. I have tried to give them all their fair shake and College Dropout is the only Kanye album I can get behind. When Kanye put the last album out its all I heard about for the first two weeks, I finally downloaded it and tried to give it a whirl, just wasn't for me. His direction for the path of hip hop and mine are not the same. I appreciate the innovation but IMO he is hurting the hip hop game more than he is helping. But its all just a matter of opinion.

How does he hurt the "hip hop game"? And what is your "direction for the path of hip hop"?

How does he hurt the "hip hop game"? And what is your "direction for the path of hip hop"?

 

I think Kanye hurts the rap game in a lot of ways. For one he fits the stereotype most middle America anti-rap people love to hate on and give as reasoning for why rap music is terrible. Secondly, IMO Kanye promotes ideas of the same lame sell out commercial stuff that most fad rappers are moving toward nowadays. Basically what I mean is instead of trying to bridge away from the riding in the Bentley, pouring out gold bottles to rinse my mouth out, using benjamins as a fire place fire starter, brag a little more rap, he only continues to work on that same type of message just with a different twist. Rap is a genre that is notorious for producing one hit wonder nobodys. One minute this new rapper is the hottest thing out, you hear his stuff everywhere, this is the banging stuff right here. Then it gets played out, ends up on Now 147 (or whatever number they are on now), and two years later nobody even remembers who the heck that even was or whatever song they recorded. You can go count all the rappers who have dominated this summers rap scene and I guarantee only a small percentage of them will be relevant in a couple of years. It is my belief that Kanyes style and his ways do more to promote this type of fad rap than to deter it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My direction for hip hop is a more grass roots approach. We've heard about Benz's, 24's, and Jacob Watches for over a decade now, everyone should be tired of that. Who cares? There is still some stuff in the underground right now that eats anything that is doing big things in commercial rap right now. Until he flamed out commercially with his last album, Wiz Khalifa was a guy like that. An original. Had a unique flow, and had a new approach to the game and how he did things. If you want to hear IMO a truly great hip hop masterpiece go and listen to Wiz Khalifa's Prince of the City II mixtape, unreal. I mean if you really want a clear cut definition of my vision of where hip hop needs to go to what Kanyes is, go back and listen to your raved about Dark & Twisted Beautiful Fantasy and then listen to Prince Of the City II. Listen to Mac Miller's K.I.D.S. Mixtape or listen to some tracks off Yelawolf's album Trunk Muzik. If you do that then you will start to see where I like to see things go in the rap industry as opposed to where I don't want to see it go. I want to hear stuff that is real and means something. Not something thats just fake and fabricated.

 

People can sense realness. People appreciate something thats genuine. I cannot listen to Kanye and feel like I'm getting the real thing, instead I feel like I am listening to one giant poser who is rapping about stuff I could care less about. However, you put out something thats real, something thats from the heart and with some soul behind it, then you have something. If you are a talented rapper and you can have a different approach than the simple brag approach and flood the hip hop scene with some music with real substance I think you can have something special. My vision of the direction I would want to take hip hop is just a real grass roots revolution. I'm talking get back to the basics, have that banging beat and mix it with lyrics that actually mean something. I wanna hear people rap about the struggle again, I want to hear people rap about stuff that matters. Theres a reason why Gangsta Rap became so popular and changed the game and thats because what they were bringing to people was real and like something they had never heard before. So in my mind I like to imagine a world in which rap continues to get flooded with more originals than carbon copies because frankly thats all rap is turning into nowadays is a bunch of copy cats.

Eminem has been discussed a lot, and I'll say this. Eminem lyrically is one of the best there has ever been. He has his own style and own way and if it wasn't for that he would have never made it. Eminem was the ground breaker and opened the door for a slew of white rappers to try and make it into the biz.

 

Excuse me. You're shortchanging Rob Van Winkle, my friend.

Excuse me. You're shortchanging Rob Van Winkle, my friend.

 

 

Hahahaha.

 

 

I guess he was one of the first. BUT, the first to actually get some true street credibility was most definitely Slim Shady.

 

 

 

 

If it means anything though I did come up with a rap lyric about a month ago that has something to do with Vanilla Ice. If I can recall correctly it goes a little something like, "forget (didn't say forget) the fake stuff girl I'm talkin real life, I'm talkin Rob Van Winkle not Vanilla Ice.

 

That's all original my friend so I'f I hear it on an album anytime soon I'll know someone ripped me. :lol:

Hahahaha.

 

 

I guess he was one of the first. BUT, the first to actually get some true street credibility was most definitely Slim Shady.

 

 

 

 

If it means anything though I did come up with a rap lyric about a month ago that has something to do with Vanilla Ice. If I can recall correctly it goes a little something like, "forget (didn't say forget) the fake stuff girl I'm talkin real life, I'm talkin Rob Van Winkle not Vanilla Ice.

 

That's all original my friend so I'f I hear it on an album anytime soon I'll know someone ripped me. :lol:

Does street credibility really matter? Especially when you originally said, "Eminem was the ground breaker and opened the door for a slew of white rappers to try and make it into the biz". Mr. Van Winkle had the first hip hop single to reach #1 on the Billboard Charts. He also had the fastest selling hip hop album of all time (not for sure if that still remains). That seems to indicate he "made it into the biz". Seems a little short-sighted to dismiss Vanilla Ice here.

People can sense realness. People appreciate something thats genuine. I cannot listen to Kanye and feel like I'm getting the real thing, instead I feel like I am listening to one giant poser who is rapping about stuff I could care less about. However, you put out something thats real, something thats from the heart and with some soul behind it, then you have something. If you are a talented rapper and you can have a different approach than the simple brag approach and flood the hip hop scene with some music with real substance I think you can have something special. My vision of the direction I would want to take hip hop is just a real grass roots revolution. I'm talking get back to the basics, have that banging beat and mix it with lyrics that actually mean something. I wanna hear people rap about the struggle again, I want to hear people rap about stuff that matters. Theres a reason why Gangsta Rap became so popular and changed the game and thats because what they were bringing to people was real and like something they had never heard before. So in my mind I like to imagine a world in which rap continues to get flooded with more originals than carbon copies because frankly thats all rap is turning into nowadays is a bunch of copy cats.

You harp on Kanye for being a poser and claiming you aren't getting the real thing. But aren't these excesses he raps about the real thing for Kanye? He does indeed live that life. I wouldn't easily dismiss Kanye as not having substance either. I can't remotely quote the lyrics I want to, but I see reflection and introspection in many of his lyrics which I would qualify as "substance". Aren't dealing with issues of being famous, the backlash, what it's like to feel persecuted as a prominent black male a "struggle"? Just because it's not the struggle you are looking for, doesn't make it less of a struggle.

 

Finally, you end with wanting rap to be more originals---well isn't Kanye an original? And by spawning a bunch of copy cats doesn't that inherently qualify him as influential?