VIBE reader poll: Eminem is the best living rapper

For my money, The Chronic is the best rap CD ever and it's not close.

 

I think Dre is a great producer, but he only has two albums that are worth a damn. Snoop is classic, but he's kind of like Aerosmith, he just needs to stop making albums, cuz a lot of his new stuff is boring.
I just don't really like TI. He hasn't really ever done it for me, but maybe I'll try to get into it. I've really only heard his singles.

 

I agree, The Chronic changed rap forever. I still play the hell outta that today.

 

Yeah, but it's certainly not the best due to Dre's raps. He doesn't even write the majority of his stuff, although he supplied the phenomenal beats to the album. Dre's more influential and important to hip-hop history than almost anyone. But Eminem is a far better rapper than Dre ever was. He's not the best alive but he's in the top 10, and maybe even the top 5.

Jay-Z definitely tops the list though. Followed by Nas. Those guys like TI and Lil Wayne do not match up to the living legends, and likely never will until they make an album half as good as classics like "Reasonable Doubt", "The Blueprint", "The Black Album", "Illmatic", "Stillmatic", and "It Was Written."

 

I think Nas is good, but I think Lil Wayne is better. Carter Tre is the best album to come out since The Black Album.

 

To each his own, but there are about 25 albums I could name off the top of my head since '03 that are better than Carter III.

And Nas isn't just "good"...he's probably the best lyricist in hip-hop history, or in the top few. Lyrically, you cannot beat "Illmatic" and it's likely nobody ever will. He fell off for a few years in the late 1990s, but he's been dropping good-to-great work since 2001.

 

I believe this poll is obviously geared toward those who are at the top of the rap game as we speak. Obviously, teenage girls and boys were the only ones to vote. No self-respecting rap fan would vote in such a ludicrous poll...well, unless someone posted in on SJ.

Nas is tops for me, followed by Jay-Z and Lil' Wayne, who have each grown on me considerably through the years. The Game isn't far behind...I think his first three albums are the most impressive three-album debut in the history of rap.

I can't believe Dis n' Dat didn't make the list.

 

Eminem has had more hits than a lot of those guys, even Snoop and Dre. Sorry to say it. And he "retired" after his 2004 C.D. So yeah.

 

Vibe is to hip hop what ESPN is to sports.

Who is the greatest living rapper ... and by living we mean sold lots of CDs during the developmental days of our main demographic, which has no grip on history or the roots of the music. And by those rules, yeah, Eminem is clearly the greatest.

 

When Lil Wayne has a song like Ether let me know. Jay is definately at the top right now. Nas is near the top, but has been inconsisten, but has also hit home runs-see Illmatic. Luda gets honorable mention. Dre is a producer first and rapper second. There are 4 or 5 guys in Wu-Tang Clan better than Eminem. And any list that has living rappers that doesn't include KRS-One is in an America I don't want to live in.

 

Eminem deserves to be in the conversation, whether he's on hiatus or not, and anyone who doesn't think so doesn't understand what they're talking about. Jay and Nas and might be more talented, but Em is, I'd argue, more diverse. (I think Andre 3000 is the only one who comes close in terms of breadth.) People want to hate on Eminem because he's been commercially successful and he's been something of a soap opera his personal life, but the rhyming structure he uses and the lyrical turns he takes are incredible. You could write a term paper on the fascinating postmodern complexities of "Stan" which is as creative as anything the genre has ever seen, and is probably the only rap song Orwell or Poe would have loved. Eminem lost his way somewhat when he decided that mocking boy bands and teenyboppers was his artistic muse, but he's hardly been as one-note as Jay-Z.

Dre is the most important hip hop "artist" of my lifetime, but he doesn't even rank in the top 50 rappers.

Snoop turned into a parody a long time ago. His rhymes have gotten increasingly weak with age.

Kanye is a much better producer than he is rapper. DMX is an idiot.

Mos Def and Talib Kweli never get enough love on these lists.

It's a shame Tupac isn't around, because if he was, there would be no argument: The perfect voice, the ability to be controversial, to be wise, to be stupid and childish, to be a storyteller, to be spiritual, to be social conscious, to understand social ills while at the same time striving for something better. He wrote the greatest dis track of all time ("Hit em up") and dipped into the same misogynistic well that so many do ("I Get Around") but at the same time, he wrote stuff like "Brenda's Got A Baby" and "Dear Mamma." What rapper these days is writing songs like "Keep Ya Head Up"? No one. (Kanye probably tries hardest, but "Good Life" and "Goldigger" aren't quite "So Many Tears."

Biggie might have been, arguably, the best lyricist, but Tupac was the whole (complicated) package.

 

That's an absolute BRILLIANT post, Double Down. Well fucking said. I don't disagree with anything you wrote...other than the fact I think Nas can tell a story as well as anyone.

As far as storytellers go, I really enjoyed the Slick Rick tribute the other night on some VH-1 award show.