lilstarz07
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who do you consider to be the best rapper ever or your top 5 or what makes a good rapper to you?
Announcing album leaks will get you banned.
- Thread in 'Music' Thread starter Started by its all good baby baby,
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m16
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Too make it easier for you to understand, rare23 feels that 50 Cent's The Massacre is better than Scarface's The Diary and The Fix combined. Itdoesn't matter if he heard Scarface or not, in fact, he probably thinks we are talking about Scarface the movie right now
Why ? It sold more and was more popular.
Do you agree with this logic ?
anyway here's my top 5:
1. Big L
2. Kool G Rap
3. Big Pun
4. Rakim
5. KRS-One
Why ? It sold more and was more popular.
Do you agree with this logic ?
anyway here's my top 5:
1. Big L
2. Kool G Rap
3. Big Pun
4. Rakim
5. KRS-One
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You're so simple minded. What I'm saying is just flying over your head.Originally Posted by M16
Using your logic Lil Wayne or Eminem > Kool G Rap/Big L/KRS-One/Big Pun/Rakim/GZA etc etc etc
Let me quote myself since you're quoting me out of context.
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U having Big L number 1 on your list is just as laughable as someone saying eminem is number 1 on their list...
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Whoever someone thinks is their favorite rapper or the best rapper is their opinion, who cares why they think that way.
To say that a good rapper is based on drawing crowds or appeal to a certain audience is just wrong. There are rappers and other artists in other genres who aresigned to major labels and are backed by multi-million dollar marketing campaigns, which get their songs on radio/tv/internet, which hooks them up with certainhit writers and producers, and this directly affects who they appeal to. I don't think the talent of an artist always directly correlates with howsuccessful they are as an artist.
To say that a good rapper is based on drawing crowds or appeal to a certain audience is just wrong. There are rappers and other artists in other genres who aresigned to major labels and are backed by multi-million dollar marketing campaigns, which get their songs on radio/tv/internet, which hooks them up with certainhit writers and producers, and this directly affects who they appeal to. I don't think the talent of an artist always directly correlates with howsuccessful they are as an artist.
m16
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Just stop. Big L is the undisputed GOAT with the closest competitor being G Rap. Who is your GOAT ? Big L would have torn him to shreds and embarrassed him onhis own track.
and rare23... what is this you keep saying about "being a rapper = drawing crowds" .... Drawing crowds = appealing to people who have no businesslistening to rap. It doesn't make you good. For the record, paz has a huge underground and international following. When it comes to what really mattersthough, rappers who actually matter respect him. I don't care if a 13-14 year old kid is bumping vinnie paz out in suberbia somewhere... I simply careabout quality music. Right now, I would even argue an inverse relationship between sales and quality... so if anything, drawing these kids around you means youARE good... at making bad music. Perfect example is your boy Cam. He was rapping alongside Big L ad holding it down one day... then sells out and makes trashthe next. What happens ? His record sales sky-rocket.
lilstarz07
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i understand what you THINK he said but youre missing the point ... you dont take into consideration the mainstream appeal, ability toconsistently put out material for the masses, blind entertainment value etc... etc.... in your evaluation of a rapper, but rare does ...
and i cant really rock with your analogy because scarface has a SIGNIFICANT following as compared to vinnie paz and whoever else you put up there ... he is themost consistent rapper of all time to me, whether you like his style or not and theres plenty of people down south who would share my thoughts ... i know 50cent cant hold scarfaces %!* when it comes to their respective rap careers, but i guess i understand part of what youre saying about people never hearing dudebefore and disagreeing ...
and i really really really cant rock with your top 5 ... but i understand what type of fan you are and respect it i guess ... this goes back to my originalpost i made in here sparking a debate ... if you think rd is better than illmatic i dont give your opinion much weight ... if you dont have scarface in yourtop 10 AT LEAST i dont give your opinion much weight ... i just dont like fans who think otherwise because they have some other taste of music that i just dontagree with
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Just Stop Posting
You Know Who You Are
You Know Who You Are
m16
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Did I say RD is better than illmatic ? Did you even see my top 10 ? Did I ever say Scarface wasn't consistent ?
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It sucks this thread will probably be closed before RD.
lilstarz07
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i wasnt referring to you in particular ... thats just what i said originally and people were stonefacing the hell outta me lol ...
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You always try to sound so smart in your posts yet you fail to see the logical flaw in stating opinion as fact.
Another problem that arises when we compare rappers is that you're seeking your own individuality based on someone elses creativity while I don't mindenjoying what the masses like because at the root of it, all music is an art form intended at giving people something to share in common and bring peopletogether.
And who made you the gatekeeper of hip-hop, deciding who should and who shouldn't listen to rap? Because I know for a fact that if I were to air you outhere, that not only would 100% of the board agree that you shouldn't listen to rap but the amount of members on NT will actually double since people willmake accounts just to give you the
m16
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It's really simple. If you don't know your past (ex: not knowing the pharcyde) you should not even attempt at making generalized opinions. As far aslistening to rap, looking at the types of fans that someone like Em or Wayne bought in... the vast majority only made it worse by throwing their money attrash. Who said anything about sounding smart or that I shouldn't listen to rap ? Get real. You got dudes who can't discuss rap before 2004 withoutopening up new tabs of google searches telling people they can't listen to rap now ?
I don't even know why you are still arguing. Your points been shredded and now you are talking about "bring people together". Duh. That'sexactly how rap began. The thing is.. It was once about bringing people together over things that mattered.. it had social/political commentary, meaning...dispersed meaningful information. Now.. it's about bringing 14 year olds together talking about which dipset member is the GOAT.
I don't even know why you are still arguing. Your points been shredded and now you are talking about "bring people together". Duh. That'sexactly how rap began. The thing is.. It was once about bringing people together over things that mattered.. it had social/political commentary, meaning...dispersed meaningful information. Now.. it's about bringing 14 year olds together talking about which dipset member is the GOAT.
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Big L is def top 10, but the only thing I wonder is if M16 would have still liked his if he was still alive.
m16
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Probably. Unlike Biggie who already showed signs he was gonna completely sell out Big L stayed true up to his last days. He turned down a deal with the Rocbecause they would not take his two boys with him instead of just ditching them. His music got banned from the radio for being too offensive but he didn'tchange it and remained loyal to his fans 100%. Where was he killed ? Right in the same Harlem streets he repped so hard from when he was unknown. That'spart of why I have so much respect for him.
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I love Big L as much as the next dude, but it is well known that he was going to sign with Rocafella and was going to blow up next to Jay
lilstarz07
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i always thought big L was pretty much on with the roc ... i didnt even know about that situation meb was talking about
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Can you explain to me how my argument has been ripped to shreds?
It's very simple.
I judge rappers based on commercial success since to me that kind of success is indicative of being a better person that has something more than just lyricalability.
You judge rappers based on lyrical ability.
Two different scales. Doesn't mean what you say is more valid then what I say.
The End.
It's very simple.
I judge rappers based on commercial success since to me that kind of success is indicative of being a better person that has something more than just lyricalability.
You judge rappers based on lyrical ability.
Two different scales. Doesn't mean what you say is more valid then what I say.
The End.
m16
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See: C3 > _____ example.
and about the Big L situation, peep this article:
Rapper, 23, was on verge of stardom when gunned down in Harlem BY DAVID OVALLE
When Run-DMC's Jam Master Jay was gunned down recently, he became another on a list of high-profile hip-hop artists to die prematurely. The following isthe equally tragic story of a rapper who was less-known in the mainstream but had helped discover such major names as Mase and Cam'ron and had a globalfollowing. Lamont Coleman, aka Big L, was one of New York's most popular rappers in the late 1990s. He was killed at age 23.
NEW YORK - Lenaisa Phinazee talks to her Uncle Mont often. Sometimes, the 4-year-old plays phantom games of basketball with him. Uncle Mont's name morphsto those who knew him. Big L to legions of hip-hop fans, Mont-Mont to his nine aunts and uncles. His tombstone bears his real name: Lamont Coleman.
Lenaisa refuses to believe that death has taken her uncle, a popular rapper gunned down just blocks from the Harlem apartment where he grew up. He died justone block from the park where he freestyled with his friends, sharpened his lyrics and enjoyed barbecues with his family. It's been more than two yearssince someone killed Coleman, the lightning-tongued lyricist who helped discover eventual rap stars Mase and Cam'ron.
No one has ever been brought to justice in his murder. The man police believe killed him is in prison on federal drug charges, but they don't have enoughevidence to charge him with the 1999 killing. The most important question -- why was a rapper on the verge of stardom shot down? -- is still the source ofspeculation in the heart of Harlem. For Coleman's family, his death has sucked away the energy that revolved around the 139th Street Park, once the vibranthub of this block. On his first album, Lifestylez Ov Da Poor and Dangerous, Coleman immortalized this stretch around West 139th Street and Lenox Avenue as the''Danger Zone,'' a slice of Harlem far removed from the Bill Clinton-fueled neighborhood renaissance.
A mural of Big L painted on the side of a corner market watches over the park, where he used to hang out with Gerard Woodley, his alleged killer. Woodley usedto eat at Coleman's dinner table.
BIG DREAMS
Gilda Terry laughed when she first heard her son's rap moniker; Coleman was anything but big. He stood no more than five-foot-eight and was toothpick thin,although he would flex his biceps jokingly for his family. He rapped about street violence -- not unusual in this neighborhood -- but had never been in troublewith the law. His two older brothers called him a TV gangster.
Coleman embarrassed easily in front of his family. He didn't bring a girl home to meet the family until he was 19. If he was rapping with friends at thepark, he would stop immediately if his family walked by. At home, he was the youngest of three sons, a spoiled goofball with a penchant for card tricks andsunflower seeds. Only his aunt, Pam Phinazee, would laugh at his corny jokes.
While a student at Westside High School, Coleman was discovered at a record store by rapper and producer Lord Finesse. He became a young member of Harlem'sfabled Diggin' in the Crates Crew and signed with Columbia Records in 1992. His mother giggled when he told her he toured in Japan and was treated likeMichael Jackson. ''I never took him seriously because he would play so much,'' Terry says. 'He always said, `Momma, I'm going to bebig.' And I would tell him to get out of my face.'' But he was big. His group, Children of the Korn, included Mase (then known as Murder Mase, sansthe shiny suits) and Cam'ron (then Killer Kam) and Cam'ron's cousin, Blood. Eventually, Mase and Cam'ron would earn their fame after signingwith P. Diddy's Bad Boy Entertainment. Blood would die in a car accident.
DROPPED FROM LABEL
Coleman was dropped from Columbia because his albums did not sell well -- they were not ''pop'' enough. Still, he stayed close to the park,sizing up talent and continuing to practice his verbal flow. It was, after all, the same park on the same block where his family and the block associationwould gather regularly. Once, a family reunion/barbecue drew so many neighbors that the police demanded to know why they hadn't sought a block partypermit.
And his loyalty to the rappers on 139th Street was unquestionable. When Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella Records offered to sign Coleman, he declinedbecause it would not take his cohorts, McGruff and C-Town. On Still Here, released posthumously on The Lyricist Lounge Vol. 2 (Rawkus Records,2000), Coleman spits: ``My underground n - - - - - / y'all can shine with me / got my own label now, so y'all can sign with me / y'all can take mefrom the bottom and climb with me / that's fine with me, that's how it was designed to be.'' Indeed, Coleman started his own indielabel, Flamboyant Entertainment, and was preparing a party to promote it when the shooting happened. Police would later show the party fliers to anxious familymembers gathered at the scene. The family identified Coleman using the photo on the flier.
FATEFUL NIGHT
Feb. 14, 1999. That evening, Gilda Terry came home from work and half-jokingly chewed out her son, Coleman -- who had recently moved back into his mom's140th Street apartment -- for not bringing her any Valentine's Day candy. So he ran down five flights of steps and to the corner store. When he returned,he handed her a packet of peanut-chew candies before leaving the apartment again.
She settled down to watch the first of a two-part TV movie before going to bed. Terry would never see her son alive again. To this day, she will not watchtwo-part TV movies because it brings back bad memories. When she returned from work the next day, Coleman was not home. Terry settled down on the couch towatch the second part of the movie (the title escapes her), her Valentine's peanut chews on the end table ready to be eaten. They would sit there, uneatenand forgotten, for weeks afterward. Terry doesn't remember who called her with the news that her son had been shot, but she immediately jumped into a caband rushed to a nearby hospital. It was the wrong place -- Coleman's body was in front of the Delano Village housing project, just a block away from thepark. Coleman's uncle, Kenny Phinazee, rushed to the scene, but the police would not let him pass. A crowd had gathered. He gripped the black iron gate --the night air so cold that he could see his breath -- and cried for the first time in years.
Police soon arrested Woodley, who grew up with Coleman and his two brothers. At the time, Woodley was facing federal drug charges -- he had been arrestedearlier in the year, along with Coleman's older brother, Donald Phinazee.
The New York Daily News reported that Woodley had a beef with one of Coleman's brothers and instead took it out on Coleman. Neighborhood speculation hasprovided plenty of other rumors. But to this day, Coleman's family does not know why Coleman was killed. But there was not enough evidence to chargeWoodley with the murder, said an assistant district attorney, Dan M. Rather. The investigation is still open.
In December 1999, Woodley nervously pleaded guilty to one count of distribution and possession with intent to distribute cocaine base. He is serving a 50-monthsentence in a New York federal prison and is scheduled to be released in late December. To add further agony, Coleman's other brother, Leroy Phinazee, wasmurdered last year. His family declines to discuss the details, but Terry says Phinazee was killed while trying to find out what happened to Coleman.
HIP-HOP HERO
Coleman's fame within the hip-hop world did not sink in to his family until his passing. For eight hours, hundreds of people lined up around the block toview his body. When the viewing closed for the night, well-wishers had to be turned away. Police escorted the family to the George Washington Bridge for theburial, which was attended by a throng of hip-hop stars, including Fat Joe, Mase and Cam'ron. Phone calls of condolences came from as far away as Brazil.Those calls keep coming today. Earlier this month, one caller wanted to send a demo tape to Coleman. He had been in jail and didn't know Coleman was dead.On Coleman's birthday, flowers pop up at the mural near the park. His album, The Big Picture, released posthumously, hangs on his grandmother's wall.It sold well enough -- some 500,000 copies -- to earn gold honors.
A box full of Coleman's rhymes, scribbled in journals and on scraps of paper and napkins, gathers dust in Terry's apartment closet. A trophy her sonwon at Harlem's famed Apollo Theater sits in the corner; it's taller than Terry. And on 139th Street, the park looks little like it did when Colemanand his crew rocked it. City officials installed a colorful tot-lot and put up a sign that reads: ''No adults allowed without children.'' On arecent Sunday afternoon, it was desolate.
''L was the man,'' Cam'ron told The Village Voice after Coleman's death. ``If he wasn't out on the block, nobody knew how the blockwas going to function.'' For Coleman's family, the block has functioned little since Coleman's death. The spirit captured so vividly by Colemanand his friends, through the parties and rhyme sessions, melted away on a cold night by the heat of gunfire.
''I don't think they've had a real block party since Lamont died,'' Terry says. `We used to get out there and have a good time. Ourfamily still gets together but not out there.''
Him about to sign with the Roc a day or two before/after he died was just a myth.
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yea but his flamboyant label would've probably gotten distribution through rocafella or def jam - something like that, he definitely would've beenaffiliated with rocafella and would've wanted to capitalize on being affiliated (almost like kanye did).
m16
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My original point "He declined the record deal because they wouldn't take his two boys" still stands. You can speculate all you want about whatwould/could have happened, but what DID happen was that he refused to leave his friends and did, just as he said in his rhymes he would... started his ownlabel to sign the underground cats and give them a shot. That's straight stand-up action, and I respect him for it. Most dudes would have took the Rocmoney and ran to a mansion in the suburbs.. not Big L. He was still rhyming with neighborhood kids in front of his stoop at the height of his career.
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m16
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And here I was thinking that breaking through to the mainstream was an accomplishment
I see the light now tho, it's really the underground that you have to break into
Don't put words into my mouth fam. I respect rappers who go mainstream and sell, without compromising the quality of their music. Sadly, doing both todayat the same time is almost impossible. We live in an era where C3 gets you nominated for a Grammy and sells multiple times more than an actual qualitymainstream album like Untitled, after all.
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You're a moron. When did I say anything about money?
Maybe I meant in the sense that they have something called charisma which makes them more likable.
You dudes don't even know how to argue. You rip @+%@ out of context and twists words around.
ol' bill o'reily type dudes.
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Commercial success =/= charismaOriginally Posted by rare23
You're a moron. When did I say anything about money?
Maybe I meant in the sense that they have something called charisma which makes them more likable.
You dudes don't even know how to argue. You rip @+%@ out of context and twists words around.
ol' bill o'reily type dudes.
I don't get why'd you judge rappers on commercial success instead of the music they put out...that's that 50 Cent mindset there.
