"best" anything ever is entirely subjective. seems to me every time you start this thread, you're basing it off of nostalgia. Biggie was a good rapper who was lucky enough to be popular at a particular time when his rhymes were the best on the radio. but best rapper ever? that's a hard argument to make if you really get into it. Rhyme scheme, rhythm, flow? Not the best by any definition.
The thing that I don't get are the people who say, "Rapper (A) is my favorite rapper, but Rapper (B) is the greatest." If Rapper (A) is your favorite rapper, shouldn't Rapper (A) also be what you consider to be the greatest, not Rapper (B)? This comes up all the time whenever I'm chillin with people into music. I think John Frusciante's the greatest guitarist that ever lived, with Hendrix being a close second. Why will I not put Hendrix over Frusciante? It's because Frusciante's my favorite for a reason, I think his music was the best. Music is subjective, and if you're into one artist over the other, then you're implicitly saying that that artist is better, in your opinion.
Well.... I see what your'e saying, but people have different reasons for liking one thing over another. That doesn't mean they can't appreciate when something is better. Example: Laker fans probably like Magic Johnson more than they like MJ, but I'm sure more than a few think that MJ is the greatest of all-time.
Sports is less subjective than music though. Music isn't strictly about a musicians technical abilities, whereas basketball is. If you qualify music in terms of technical ability, then someone like Yngwie Malmsteen might be considered one of the greatest ever. In music, it's not always about the notes you play but rather, the notes you don't play. It's often about being able to create a song, and in terms of hip-hop, a lot of times it's about being able to create a certain cadence and create a lyrical story. It's entirely something subjective.
If Biggie got you into rap, and you're a basketball fan, then you're probably from the era where you saw Above the Rim, right? I watched that movie when I was a kid, was my favorite movie for a while, and this song was also my favorite song because of it. (btw - playing that crackhead was probably the first time I ever saw Bernie Mac, so I have that movie to thank for that as well.) Probably the most underrated/unknown Pac song of all-time: [video=youtube;_V9Vdi3QZ0I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V9Vdi3QZ0I[/video]
Yeah, that was a good one. I had that soundtrack. I love 2pac. I think his legend was diminished by some of the god awful music that was never meant to be released. One of my favorites right here... I love when the bass kicks in. [video=youtube;c3UXFYnFYkU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3UXFYnFYkU[/video]
It is entirely subjective, but people do attempt to quantify, to certain extents, "ability." Some of the best hip hop heads out there say that Eminem is one of the best. He "bends" a lot of vowels to make his rhymes uniquely his. His poetry is usually very vivid with good imagery. His style and flow and word choice all help to make it so his songs are top notch. Those are some ways that you can quantify hip hop "ability" and try to bring it into the realm of "better" or "worse." And thinking about things like rhyme scheme complexity, word play and poetic imagery.,. I just can't see how someone can say that Biggie was the GOAT. He's got good flow and style, but his rhymes are simplistic and the word-choice and subject matter are underdeveloped (which may be a symptom of the genre, not of Biggie.)
Personally, I've always thought Eminem was the best, simply because his rhymes were just crazy. Completely unique. I don't think his current music is as fresh, and he sold out a bit, but his first two albums were amazing.
But how would you start to even compare him to someone like Q-Tip, whose rhymes are more poetic in nature, and who actually produces a good amount of the music he puts out? It's like apples and oranges, and all that you can use to compare the two is your own personal taste.
Classic. It also has an Isley Brothers sample, just like one of Biggie's greatest. "It Was a Good Day" = "Footsteps in the Dark"/"Big Poppa" = "Between the Sheets" Gotta respect the Isleys for providing the samples for two of the greatest beats of all time. The crazy thing is, the producers didn't even really water down the originals too much in sampling them. They were pretty much both straight rips.
Cube was awesome back in the day as well. I guess I just miss the old days of hip hop. It's a different genre now. More about the music and less about the lyrics.
