What Makes The BEST Rapper? Top 5 Criteria

One more time. Then we do it one more time. One more time. Spin it, rock, spin it one more time. Hit me, baby, one more time. We are here to debate the top five criteria for best rapper alive. Best rapper alive. How do we get here? Shit. How did we get here? We got here because I got on TikTok to do a trend, because that's what you do to do numbers these days, apparently. And to find friends. I was doing a bracket for the best rapper. It gave me Dr. Dre versus Travis Scott. And my argument. Who'd you pick? I picked Travis. Oh shit, what an idiot. My argument was Goddamn, bro. Dr. Dre doesn't write. He didn't never wrote any of his stuff. He was way more known as a producer. He's not showing up in the studio with a pen and pad. You know what I mean? He's just he's not he's not that guy for me. And yes, people do write for Travis also, but I get that before you leave a comment. But yeah, to me, songwriting was. Nah, bro. Travis writes all of his own shit. It wasn't that high in the list for me. So we decided to break this down and each create a top five criteria of what makes the best rapper. Alive.

Or dead. Or dead. You can be dead. It's fine. Okay. Okay. All right. I didn't know that was part of the criteria. Best rapper. All right. Okay. Best rapper. Do you have a different criteria if they're dead. I mean, I need to check my list again. Yeah. No, but so we, you know, we thought it'd be kind of fun where we didn't actually look at each other's lists. So we're basically we're basically gonna go from most important on our list to the fifth most important on the list, right? And these are criteria when everyone's having the debate about who's the best rapper alive. We love to, okay, who's the best rapper, alive or dead? We all like to have that debate amongst each other, but really, it's like, what are you factoring in? Like and and why is that particular criteria important to you, right? Yes. And again, these are opinions. You're allowed to disagree with. So go fuck yourself if you don't agree. And if you tell us our opinions are wrong, that's fine too. It just boosts our engagement. The algorithm loves haters. Indeed.

And by the way, shout out to our sponsor, uh, Guayaki, Yerba Mate. Yes. If you need a nice clean boost, try Yerba Mate from Guayaki. I should probably start drinking our sponsor's drinks, right? I mean, they're amazing. How do you know? How do you not? So much better than coffee. Because it's past 9 p.m. and I don't want that caffeine boost that they give you. But all right, we're gonna start from the top. I'm gonna kick us off. My number one criteria when debating who is the best rapper. What makes the best rapper? What makes the best rapper? I'm going lyricism. Number one. Lyricism. Number one. So what is included in lyricism to you? To me, lyricism can include it's it's it's it's basically the lyrical content of the rapper, right? What are they saying? What bars are they delivering, right? Like what is the content within their raps, right? So that can be storytelling rappers, Yep. that can be punchline heavy rappers. Yep. It doesn't matter, right? It's all the lyrical content and it's all under the lyricism umbrella, in my opinion. Do you agree with that?

Like at least. definition? I agree with the umbrella. Okay, with the definition. I did include, I have lyricism on my list, and then I did, I wasn't sure how we were gonna do this. So I did include like bars, punchlines along with storytelling, kind of under the wordplay lyricism is one category. Exactly, because it can also be rhymes, right? Like rhyme schemes. Are you rhyming, you know, in rhymes only, like internal rhymes, like all the fun lyric-related shit with the words? Yes, right? Like what you're saying is under that umbrella. So that that's my number one. Yeah, that's terrible number one. Bro, we're talking about rapping. Terrible number one. That that's rapping. Yeah, it's the it's the verb. There's more to rapping than the words, and it's actually my number one, which is flow slash cadence. Oh shit. Way more fucking important than lyricism is the flow. Okay, well, let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. Flow and cadence. Flow and cadence. Yeah. I didn't mean to ruin your flow and cadence, but hold on. But hold on. Okay.

It it does do those encompass delivery, would you say? Just to make sure we're like singing so you have delivery. I have delivery on my list. Well, sort of the same kind of, not really. Not really. The way you're delivering the words. The way you're flowing with the words. You could deliver a flow differently. You could deliver a cadence differently. The flow is the bounce. It's the rhythm. It's the it's the but the, but the, but the, but the, but the, but the, but. Okay, yeah, yeah. That is the most important thing to me. That was that didn't help me. at all. And the reason that it's so important, you can listen to international artists, you can listen to artists that you don't even speak their language. And if it's just bouncing and you just feel them hitting those pockets, nothing is more important to me than the flow. And my favorite artist, Wayne, is the king of the flow and the cadence. He would have been a little bit more. He's also the king of lyricism, which is why that was my number one. Well, but lyricism is more like on the like the Eminem, like with the like the internal rhymes. He wasn't worried about that.

Well, punchlines. bro. It's the flows and the cadences are more important. The Wayne punchlines. Yeah. The goat. But the flows with which he delivered the punchline. All right, moving on. Moving on to our second most important criteria when debating best rapper. Go for it. I'm going with the voice. Ooh. Bro, if you can't immediately be put in a, you know, in a feeling in a vibe because of the way that they sound, bro. It's not for me. Don't you think that that can be trained though? Like, and don't you how you sound? Absolutely not. Uh I think you can sound different with some training. I think that's what vocal trainers do. Bro, I'm stuck with this shitty raspy voice. You can't train me to sound like Bum B. Yeah, but I could sound like this sometimes, or I could fucking sound like this sometimes with a little bit of training. Well, this is entertainment. I don't care if it's your normal speaking voice, but your rapping voice, the way that you sound when you're rapping, that's gonna set people apart. Man, that's what they're gonna remember, man.

They're gonna remember how people sound. So voice isn't is isn't even on my list. It's not good, not that important to me. Good because it's super important, and that's why I'm gonna come out on top of this debate. How do you how do you defend people like how about my boy Germ? He's got like a high pitched, like kind of like voice. That's why And he snapped and he spazes. and he snaps. That that's because his voice is so unique. I love that. So it just has to be unique to you. Yeah, I didn't say what how you're supposed to sound. You don't think a regular voice that if it's just delivered perfect and it's confident and it's hitting the pockets, not best rapper. Wow, not in the conversation for me. I have to highly disagree with you there. I'm glad we're disagreeing. This is good content, though. I'm not gonna lie. But voice, not even on my top five at all. Don't care. When when you start talking about people, a lot of the things you might say are, hey, you sound like insert best rapper. Hey, you sound like imminent. But is that because of how their voice sounds, or is it because of their flows, their cadences, their lyrics? I'd argue that it's has to do with lyricism, flow. Okay. I had, I'd argue it has to do you know with a lot of that.

All of the above, I guess. Yeah, yeah. But for me, it is like people do compare the sonics. Like how it how is your voice sounding as a rapper? I think any sound of voice could work, but that's neither here nor there. I'm gonna move on with my number two pick, which is maybe I'm biased as a producer, but beat selection. Ooh, I've got it on mine. So important. It's it's important. Listen, you can wrap your ass off. You can have the hardest stories, you can have the best flows, you can do all that. If your beat sucks, your song sucks. Straight up. Yeah, but for me, and you know, I have beat selection lower down, but for me, it's not even about like if the beat's good or not, because that's that's almost like irrelevant to how it how it's married up. I know where you're going with the artists. Yes, absolutely. A mid-grade beat could be like just float on so perfectly where it meshes together, it could level it up a little bit. Exactly. But I think different beats do have different floors and different ceilings. So you do want to pick a beat that has a high floor and a high ceiling, and then you want to marry up to it and you want to match it and you want to complement it so that it's the best song possible.

Yeah, but for me, I I feel like the high quality production, when you're starting to talk about anyone remotely close to best rapper conversation, the beats being good is like it's it's just table stakes. The beats are good. There's plenty of big rappers out there rapping on shitty beats, Ben. But we're not talking about big, we're talking about people that are that should be in the conversation for best rapper, Henry. We're not just talking about big. We're talking about best rapper candidates. And I think that it does set them apart about the beat selection, though. It's not just about, hey, which top producer can I have in the room with me to make a record, right? For sure. It's about what's gonna sound perfect with me, the rapper, right? Like, and I just thought of me, myself rapping, and it was kind of funny. So I don't know if that's where you went in. And that kind of goes more into the producer category, which I was trying to, I was having some trouble differentiating. But for sure. So yeah, number three. Number three, baby. I'm excited about this one because I think it's I think when we once again we're talking about best rapper criteria.

I think that number three for me is impact to the genre as a whole, right? Like culturally, yeah. Like, did you transform the genre? So take someone like a Drake, who's in the conversation today, right? Okay, he fundamentally changed the genre by doing the singing and the rapping type of style. Like if you contribute to something that is unique and new to the genre and you're remembered as such, right? Like we point back to like, hey, like that rapper created this type of flow or this type of you know production with his raps or this type of once again, singing versus rapping, like you know, melodic rap, etc. Like that didn't exist, bro, prior to Drizzy, for example, right? So I think like if you fundamentally change the genre, and people can point to that, and your name comes up when they when they you know are talking about that sort of thing, like that for me is huge, man. So T.I.

and Gucci and Jeezy get plus points for revolutionizing southern trap rap. I I would say, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a good one. I mean I didn't think about cultural impact. When you think of like the founding fathers of trap, like you know, it doesn't have to always be one person, like some people can be like part of that, you know, group that helped transform the genre, but if you're one of them, you know, who you know, shit. I don't even know Drill that well, but like in the future, drill's gonna be one of those things where if if it stays around for a while, which like we know how you feel about it, and you hope it dies tomorrow. Well, I'm just saying, but you're not a fan, you're not a fan. It can exist, sure. But but I'm just saying that like people will remember Pop Smoke, They will remember the the like early people that cemented that that new thing, right? That that kept the genre fresh, like because it can get stale. Like we're in a point where I think we're kind of feeling stale, where it's like there's a lot of the same shit out, like who's gonna do something new? Yeah, do something new, rappers. Yeah. So, you know, that that's why I think it's it's up there for me, man.

Number three. Okay. Well, my number three is where I inserted lyricism. Okay, yep. Had to come in, you know, pretty soon, bars, punchlines, what you're saying. It's what you and your friends are gonna be like, hey, when he said that's very important. So true. Um, we've kind of already you know gone over lyricism, I think. So we can we can kind of maybe move on to number four, I think. All right, yeah, number four for me. We kind of touched on this, but I did have delivery, yeah. So I know you don't want to throw flow and cadence, but I I do think that's part of the way that you're delivering the raps. So I do think that like those components are there. There's other elements too, so I'm not gonna argue there, but I think that it's it's really just how are the words and how are the raps being delivered over the beat. So there's there's things that can be involved with like artist performance, right? Like how clean is the rap, right? Like how well are you pronouncing words or muddying the words if that's the style you're going for, whatever it is you know that you're trying to do, but like how crisp and like impactful is the delivery? Like, how are we getting the message across with the way you're rapping?

And I agree that maybe flow and cadence is part of that, but it's just not all of it to me. To me, flow and cadence is more important because you could deliver the same flow a hundred different ways, you could wrap the same cadence a hundred different ways, so it's not quite the same thing. I do think delivery is important. I didn't really slot it in as a whole thing. I agree it's important. Yeah. I kind of might include that with, you know, maybe the flow and cadence if I had to. Yeah. And that was your number one, right? Right. Which I see what you're saying. To me, delivery is more like the tone of your voice. Um, the energy level, like you said. You know, are you are you meek milling it or are you like little yarding it? Yeah, I mean, I just still I just still think that like the reason why it was lower on my list is because like as important as flow and cadence are, people can I would say people can more easily copy flows and do it terribly. Yeah, like there's bad renditions, but like renditions nonetheless of people's flows. Karaoke type beat.

Yeah. I mean, I'm just saying, yeah, you can basically, you know. So that's where I think that's why I put voice up there. That's why we're obviously putting, you know, you put voice pretty high. Bro, for me, it's everything almost. Like, I'm I'm borderline put in number one. God damn, I'm not even kidding. Who cares what their voice sounds like? You could make any voice sound good. It's what's gonna just be cemented in your brain. It is, it is, but I think any voice could be cemented in your brain if the flows are fire, the cadence is fire, the lyrics are fire, the beat is fire. Who cares what the voice sounds like? I don't know, man. My number four is versatility. Oh, this is a big one because you you got people like DaBaby coming on the scene where people are trashing him and he's starting to maybe fall off a bit because a lot of his songs are sounding the same. You brought up Drizzy. This is a guy that King versatile. The ultimate chameleon. Literally the definition of versatile. Oh, reggaeton's hot right now? Do a reggaeton song. Oh, Jersey Club's hot right now? Oh, it does it better than the people that started the shit. It's unbelievable.

Bro, This guy's insane. I'm actually so happy you chose versatility. Versatility is important. Holy shit. You gotta keep it fresh. It's still gotta be you, but it becomes your version of a thing. So it's like, oh, I like this artist, and oh, I like this style of music. Now they come together for this new thing, that's a fun feeling for me as a listener. So versatility number four. Yeah, being able to float between the styles. Yes. Like because, and I'm gonna be honest, you know, you mentioned some of our our favorite um, you know, trap rappers from here in in Atlanta. They're not necessarily in the conversation not maybe like genre wise, but within the genre, I think they have versatility, which can work too. Sure, but I just mean, you know, if you were to knock them for any criteria and and say why aren't they always in these, you know, conversations? I think maybe their beat selection isn't as versatile, but if their flows and their cadences and their lyrics are versatile, yeah, then you're still being versatile. You're still keeping me interested.

Whereas the baby maybe wasn't as great switching any of those things. But see, but you take someone like an Outcast. The reason why for me, they're you know, up in the conversation. I know they're a duo, but still, you know, putting them on the you know, best rapper pedestal for me is because also of that versatility. I mean Absolutely. You take Speakerboxxx love below, even just as sounds like none of their other projects, and it's one of their best. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So it's just shit like that, man. I that that's a good one. Versatility, baby. You might've just I might've just voted for you now. I was already winning, but now I'm winning. No, like you weren't, you probably weren't winning, but like that shot you ahead. Okay, I'll take it. Damn. Okay. So obviously your number five is beat selection. My number five is beat selection. Yeah. We already went over, you know, went over it. I mean, you got it. Do you think you can have those top four and have a whack beat and be a like I said, good beats are table stakes. That's not what beat selection to me means. But good beats. Like a good beat. Yeah, you have to have a good beat, but you're saying it's the it's the fifth most important. I mean, I think that it's clearly on my list, though.

Yeah, but it's last. Ah, what's your what's your last one? My number five is project building. Can you make a project? Can you create a story, not just over one song, but over a group of songs? How are you? It's like making a series instead of making like maybe a movie. Okay, let me ask you this. How long is that gonna stay important? Yeah. How long do you think that will be on your list? I want to say that it's if you make this list in 20 years, how is that gonna be is it gonna be on there? I absolutely think so. I think it's low right now on the average listener's radar, which saddens me to all hell. Because there's nothing like closing your eyes and zoning out and experiencing a project. Yeah, we're just so we're doing a million things at once now. This is a multitasking world we live in with smartphones and everything else going on, so it's hard for people to even just sit down and listen to a fucking people. used to just smoke a J and sit around a record player and hear a whole song, You know, a whole album. It was the best.

Doesn't happen anymore. But I think there's gonna be a resurgence of that, and an artist's ability to tell a story over multiple songs is something that it's an X factor that can set someone apart to me. Okay, for me, you shit on me having beat selection number five, but you didn't even have voice on there. So they can just sound like anything. Yeah, they can just have a a bland, yeah, normal, average Joe voice. Look at AI, bro. That is the Drake weekend AI. They're not in the conversation for best rapper, Henry. So that's a terrible example. Talk about in five years. I mean, who knows? Jesus. No, but honestly. Seriously. Voice. I didn't even convince you a bit. Like, dude, vote like I didn't consider that. And after you brought it up, though, no, it's still not in my top fucking five. What do y'all think, man? Leave a comment. What's your list? Who won? You know, we want to know which ones we got right, which ones we got wrong. You guys usually give us more of the latter. Yeah, we'll take the shit.

Shit on it. It helps it helps the algorithm. Yeah, once again. No problem. As always, please like, comment, and subscribe. If you are listening to this on YouTube, we appreciate you all. And we appreciate you audio listeners as well. Love you guys. Yes. I mean, I I only listen to Spotify uh podcasts, honestly. So well, you're a fucking Spotify. So I don't know why we even video record this at this point. Like it's not for me. There's just people on YouTube, right? No, for sure. Show yourselves. Until next week, what are we doing? Getting out of here. Getting the fuck out of here. Bye bye.