Rapper Ranking Project: Rapper #1 - Jay-Z

[R2_163]

No one is rap has better delivery than Jay

 

[Nechesh358]

How the fuck u gona give Jay a 3 for delivery?

 

[The Lonious Monk]

Jay's delivery is ok, but it's not great. There are plenty of people that have had better delivery over the years: Big Boi, Eminem, Big Pun, Biggie, Cannabis, Method Man, etc...

Well you have 9 categories. I don't see the harm in making a 10th category for making hits. Some people are dope MCs, but they can't make a hit to save their life. Look at Wu-Tang, all nine of them are skilled MCs, but Method Man and Ghostface are the best at making hits (Old Dirty made some hits). And if you think about it, everything else is equal amongst all of the MCs in Wu Tang. They all had the same producer and the same amount of promotion..

Like I said, it's fair to factor that into the score for Impact, but there are too many things that go into commercial hits outside of a rapper's ability to give that it's own category. Hammer has more hits than Black Thought, Common, Talib Kweli, and a lot of other rappers that are much better than him. He doesn't deserve have a category up on him just because he made music that appealed to a wider commercial base.

 

[Ear2DaSt]

another J-Z thread ... smh

 

[Like Water]

I probably would have given him a 4 for delivery/flow, and AG alone should have gotten him at least a 3 for creativity's sake.

Other than that, I agree with your assessment.

 

[The Lonious Monk]

I probably would have given him a 4 for delivery/flow, and AG alone should have gotten him at least a 3 for creativity's sake.

Other than that, I agree with your assessment.

You make a good point with AG. The only reason I didn't give a little higher for that is because it was a bit of a cheap concept album. He basically said it was an official soundtrack for AG and then filled it with a bunch of loosely gangster themed songs. If it was a little more cohesive or if he did a little bit of a better job tying it to the movie, I'd give him more credit for that. As it is, the album really could have just been called Reasonable Doubt 2.

 

[GetoBoy]

Lyrics (5)- Jay is one of the greatest lyricist rap has seen can't think of many rappers with more quotables, entendre, word play etc

Delivery (4.5)- One of the few rappers that has shown the ability to give us multiple flows and make em all come off as dope

Language (5)- This comes across as a different form of lyrics so the same thing that makes him a great lyricist makes him a 5 here as well

Story Telling (4)- Most ppl who think of story telling think of something fiction or just a made up story but me when I think of story telling I think of just a story over all whether true or not and when Jay tells stories of his drug dealing life whether true or not the stories and the way he tells them are great along with his examples like Meet the Parents and yes he's definitely an above avg story teller

Catalog (5)- I'm only going solo joints all that R.Kelly and Linkin Park stuff are like mixtapes in my book.....imo Jay got 4 classic 3 at the least and multiple other possibles..... Jay is graded on a curve a subpar album for Jay would be a great album for most MCHG is the only album where I didn't enjoy MOST of the album

Subject Matter (4)- I think this is one of Jay most underrated attributes ppl too often confuse subject matter with being a conscious rapper basically only time ppl wanna give you credit for subject matter is when you rapping about conscious subjects (see 4:44) but if you take Jay career there hasn't been any subject he hasn't talked about his subject matter is high from street level to black empowerment to social issues to tragedies to family issues he's touched everything but those don't be his hits so it goes like he said "do you listen to music or just skim through it"

Creativity (3)- I'll say in this department he doesn't consistently show his creativity he has shown creativity but only in spurts

Collaboration (5)- Best collaborator in hip hop nigga has worked with everybody in every way hip hop and R&B and put it down.... I mean he has collaboration albums in Rock (Collision Course) a R&B act (Best if Both Worlds) a hip hop act (Watch The Throne) and then there's Unplugged.... Vol 2 and The Dynasty album were damn near all collaborations as well yea ain't many better in this area

Impact (5)- See the reaction to the 4:44 album

Overall Score - 40.5 aka The Goat lol

 

[metal face terrorist]

^^^^^^^^^

This nigga rating Jay from 96-2001.

 

[The Lonious Monk]

Well it did take a while before the Jay overraters came in.

 

[GetoBoy]

^^^^^^^^^

This nigga rating Jay from 96-2001.

It's 2017 and he just dropped the album of the year and one of his best albums ever so when is it ok to rate him on what's the allowed time period lol

 

[The Lonious Monk]

^^^^^^^^^

This nigga rating Jay from 96-2001.

It's 2017 and he just dropped one of his best albums ever so when is it ok to rate him on what's the allowed time period lol

Across his entire career is cool. You're just overrating him. You basically gave him a 5 for Collaboration just because he's collabed a lot. It's not just about that. It's also about the quality of the people he's collabed with and how he's stacked up with them when collabing. A 5 is a perfect score and would basically mean that he's collabed with the best of the best and comes out on top more often than not. That's not really true. In collaborations, he always holds his own, but he's about 50/50 when it comes to how he's measured up. That's a 4.

 

[GetoBoy]

^^^^^^^^^

This nigga rating Jay from 96-2001.

It's 2017 and he just dropped one of his best albums ever so when is it ok to rate him on what's the allowed time period lol

Across his entire career is cool. You're just overrating him. You basically gave him a 5 for Collaboration just because he's collabed a lot. It's not just about that. It's also about the quality of the people he's collabed with and how he's stacked up with them when collabing. A 5 is a perfect score and would basically mean that he's collabed with the best of the best and comes out on top more often than not. That's not really true. In collaborations, he always holds his own, but he's about 50/50 when it comes to how he's measured up. That's a 4.

Naw you just are SEVERELY underrating him I mean look at your delivery score..... He's collaborated with the best and came out on top more often then not and even if not who can you think of has had the quality of ppl he has??? I put it a 5 becuz he holds his own with everybody and collabs with everybody which everybody can't say I mean how many can say they collaborated with BIG Em Nas Beanie X Kiss Fab Lupe Jay Elect Scarface Kdot Cole etc I mean it's not about who came out on top it's about did you hold your own and most if none can say they've went bar for bar with that quality of MC's on their resume let alone held their own with them all....but y'all too stuck on how often did you win I'm on who you collab with and how did you perform and what was the quality of the song and you won't find MC with a higher quality collabs resume than Jay and he's held his own with em all so that's a 5

Niggaz kill me with the "only answer that I agree with are right" mentality or you not rating it right ever think it's maybe you that's wrong??? I mean you talking bout he got 2 agreed classics but 3 are in the vault so it's safe to say you the one under selling him

 

[The Lonious Monk]

What is so great about Jay's delivery. He doesn't switch up his flow much and definitely not within songs. He's not the best at riding a beat. His delivery is decent. It gets the job done, but that's about it. He's nowhere near the best in that area.

 

[GetoBoy]

What is so great about Jay's delivery. He doesn't switch up his flow much and definitely not within songs. He's not the best at riding a beat. His delivery is decent. It gets the job done, but that's about it. He's nowhere near the best in that area.

Aight man well that's your opinion and those are your ratings just becuz somebody thinks higher than you doesn't make them overrating him no more than it makes you underrating him becuz if you asking this looking for only ppl to agree with you then you might as well just gave your opinion and asked what do ppl think of your opinion

 

[CeLLaR-DooR]

No sign leave beat selection out. Nothin' to do with rappin'

 

[Peezy_Jenkins]

No sign leave beat selection out. Nothin' to do with rappin'

It has something to do with a rap artist and their catalog tho

 

[Nah Son]

What is so great about Jay's delivery. He doesn't switch up his flow much and definitely not within songs. He's not the best at riding a beat.

Strongly disagree with this. Jays flow is one of his biggest strengths on the mic imo. He doesnt switch up his flow? My man he got a new flow on every song and he got tons of classics where he uses mutliple flows within the song, shit sometimes within a verse. Just think back to Nigga What Nigga Who, I Just Wanna Love You, Pump It Up Remix etc theres so many more examples

 

[The Lonious Monk]

Aight man well that's your opinion and those are your ratings just becuz somebody thinks higher than you doesn't make them overrating him no more than it makes you underrating him becuz if you asking this looking for only ppl to agree with you then you might as well just gave your opinion and asked what do ppl think of your opinion

It's not about that. If I wanted to underrate Jay, I would have given his ass a 3 in every thing, but I didn't. I looked at what he's done and tried to be objective. Now I admit in the opening post that I'm not necessarily right on everything and people can feel free to argue a point. But recognize that this an objective attempt to rate him, so you niggas that are super fans and know you can't be objective have to realize that you can't just come in here and expect me to give him all 5s because you love him. You got give a good reason for me to adjust the score and "It's Jay, he's the best." Isn't a good reason.

I also don't think you guys understand how the scoring works so let me explain that a little better.

5 - Elite, this means that rapper is the best or one of the very best in a particular area.

4 - Exceptional, this means that the rapper isn't necessarily the best, but still stands above even most good rappers.

3 - Capable, this means the rapper has demonstrated some ability in an area, but not much more than many other good rappers.

2 - Unexceptional, this means the rapper doesn't do any more in a particular area than the vast majority of other rappers.

1 - Wack, this means the rapper isn't very good in a particular area or has not shown much capability in an area.

0 - I said 1-5 because realistically every rapper should have some capability, however in the rare case where you can make an argument that a person just completely fails, you can give a 0.

Now, let's look at one of the areas where we disagree, Storytelling. You give him a full point higher than I did. Your argument is basically, "He's told some good stories." He has. We don't disagree there, but does his storytelling ability and use of stories set him apart from other good rappers? Not really. Jay can create a strong narrative and deliver it as a song. That's good. But it's something he does all that often relative to the number of songs he has. The types of stories he tells aren't all that varied. They pretty much stick to a script with some exceptions. He's a good storyteller, but when you look at the pack of good rappers, most of them are good story tellers. So what does Jay do that raises him above that pack? Pastor Troy is a good storyteller. I can post some good stories from him like you could for Jay. However, he's still just a 3, because when you look at the good rappers over the course of Hip Hop history, they all have told some good stories from time to time.

 

[The Lonious Monk]

What is so great about Jay's delivery. He doesn't switch up his flow much and definitely not within songs. He's not the best at riding a beat.

Strongly disagree with this. Jays flow is one of his biggest strengths on the mic imo. He doesnt switch up his flow? My man he got a new flow on every song and he got tons of classics where he uses mutliple flows within the song, shit sometimes within a verse. Just think back to Nigga What Nigga Who, I Just Wanna Love You, Pump It Up Remix etc theres so many more examples

This kinda goes with my previous post where I explained the scoring. I gave Jay a 3.5. That doesn't mean his flow is bad. In fact, the .5 means its trending towards Exceptional. There is no question Jay has good delivery, but again, most good rappers have good delivery.

Here's nigga Nigga What Nigga Who. That's an example you gave.


His flow is dope. He rides the beat well. He also rides it straight the whole song. He's not changing up his flow. His flow wasn't even as dynamic as Jaz's. Look how Jaz seamlessly went from riding the beat straight like Jay and then into a kinda machine gun flow and then back and into a kinda stoccato delivery a little later. He did that across one verse. Jay had 2 verses and didn't alter his delivery that much. But neither of them are switching in they way I'm talking about on that song. Jaz was really just adjusting his flow to accommodate his lyrics. That's pretty standard for a good delivery and even in your example for where Jay is supposedly exceptional, someone else gives a better example of having a dynamic flow.

However, for a true flow swithc, listen to Twista's verse on this song (go to 2:24)


The nigga changed to a completely different flow in the middle of his verse. Same beat but his delivery completely changed and he didn't lose a step. You have rappers out there that do thinks like that regularly and multiple times in single songs. Jay doesn't do that. He usually picks the best delivery for him and sticks with it without alteration through an entire song. Again, his flow is dope and that's why I gave him the .5 because he does stand out even among good rappers, but he's not a rapper that just delivers in a way that elevates him.

 

[jim1000]

No one is rap has better delivery than Jay

Ha I can name two real quick for you

1. Biggie

2. Method Man

Nuff said.