Finishing up last week's battle, here's my two cents, followed by our next battle.
I'm going to look at it this way, do I take the absolute monstrosity of X's prime, or do I take the consistency of Method Man? Method is certainly the better lyricist, but you can't deny the emotion and passion that X always put into his music, so I'm going to take DMX here by the slimmest of margins. I don't think it's nearly as cut and dry as many put it here, but to each their own, that's why we're here right? I love Method Man, don't get me wrong. I'm a lot like jmt where I grew up listening to X, and now in my more maturing years I'm finding myself listening to Method Man. However that being said, DMX's first 3 albums were on my all time favorites list for quite sometime, in fact I still think they may just be in the top 15 without going into an official listing for those. I certainly appreciate Method's work, but his albums haven't reached my all time list. That can always change, but like I said I'm going with X just on the premise that he was the one that really dragged me into hip hop and got it hooked in my brain.
However, I saw far more support for Method Man, so I'm going to give him the victory in our first battle. Now let's take a look at the second battle.
Ice Cube
Vs.
Nas
Yes sir, we're going with some old school East Coast vs. West Coast here. Ice Cube, one of the leaders of the gangsta rap movement, NWA alumni, actually one of the more politically outspoken rappers (before everyone jumped on the Obama bandwagon a couple years back). Here's a man who helped create the controversy and the legend of NWA, before breaking out onto his own and really carving out his own legend in the hip hop game. His diss tracks towards Eazy and NWA were absolutely killer, the storytelling, the flow, you know Ice Cube. Would you say Ice Cube is a top notch lyricist? I'll let y'all discuss that one. I know Cube has been trying to reinvent his gangsta rap image with his last two albums, unfortunately I Am The West was not as good as advertised. That being said I believe you can count AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted as a classic hip hop album which more than makes up for it. You can also throw in him cleaning his image up at one point with the kids movies and TV shows he was working on. You can't hate on him, gotta make your money somehow.
On the other hand you have Nas who is the closest thing to a hip hop poet we've had since 2pac. There's no denying Nas' incredible ability on the microphone, hell some look to him as the best in the game today (I am certainly not one to argue against that, I may bring up a few names but I'd be just fine as Nas being crowned best rapper alive). But don't let those arguments deter you. He has had some down spots in his career, Nastradamus was rushed and failed expectations. After that album, Nas did fall off for a moment before the feud with Jay-Z and the release of Stillmatic. He's been on a roll ever since including dropping an album with Damien Marley, a highly rated album in my books.
I open the floor to y'all. Are you in a New York State of Mind, or are you connected to the Westside?
), but if it wasn't for Will.I.Am's ego and Fergie, I really couldn't tell the two sounds apart.
