The 25 Best Kanye West Verses OF ALL TIME!!!

"New Slaves" ain't even Top 10.

kanye west concert
Getty

Image via Getty

kanye west concert

Last week, Kanye West took to Twitter and made a very bold claim. “I open the debate," he typed. "The 2nd verse of New Slaves is the best rap verse of all time… meaning … OF ALL TIME IN THE HISTORY OF RAP MUSIC, PERIOD.” Now, we’re often inclined to agree with him (Beyonce might not have had the best video of all time, but it certainly was better than Taylor Swift’s) but sorry 'Ye, we gotta call BS. As great as “New Slaves” is, it is not the best rap verse of all time. In fact, it’s not even Kanye’s own best verse.

Over the years, Kanye has really stepped his game up on the mic. His flow went from being sloppy and choppy to precise and even acrobatic, and his thematic range has grown wider and wider. Yet, his best verses are spread out amongst his six solo albums, two collaborative efforts, and over a 100 guest features that span a decade. Since Kanye opened the debate, we’re gonna close it. These are The 25 Best Kanye West Verses OF ALL TIME...

RELATED: Ranking Kanye West's Albums From Worst to Best 

RELATED: Kanye West Is the Most Important Artist of the 21st Century

RELATED: Ign'ant Kanye vs. Conscious Kanye 

25. Kanye West "Through The Wire" (Verse 2)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: The College Dropout


This is where #YeezySeason truly began. It wasn't so much that Kanye West was outlandishly brash or musically advanced on "Through the Wire," it was that his confidence exuded the man's sheer determination to be better than the competition. Lest we forget, he rapped with his damn jaw wired shut following a car accident that almost took his life.

The second verse was the moment when Kanye went from being a prominent producer to becoming a legitimate rapper with a story to tell. He seamlessly pieced together similes ("They thought I was burnt up like Pepsi did Michael"), honesty ("Thank God I ain't too cool for the safe belt!"), and perseverance ("But I'm a champion, so I turned tragedy to triumph"). The listener couldn't help but root for him by song's end. "Through The Wire" was an incredibly fresh debut for an upcoming MC, and still is, 10 years after its fateful release. —Edwin Ortiz

24. Kanye West "Power" (Verse 2)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy


The very first time you hear the opening chants of "Power," you knew you were in for something special. While the first verse set the tone with the mix of humor ("We rollin'/With some light-skinned girls and some Kelly Rowlands") and politically charged introspection ("In this white man world/We the ones chosen") that would define the song, it's the second verse that turns it into a classic. Here, Kanye gets intensely personal, pouring it all out. After taking on his critics (the SNL cast's got "joooooookes!") and showing off a bit ("You short-minded niggas's thoughts is Napolian/My furs is Mongolian/My ice brought the goalies in...") he reaches his climax when he's able to reflect on his fame and humanize himself. "Reality is catching up with me," he says. "Taking my inner child/I'm fighting for custody." A grown-ass kid—it's that childlike voice that Kanye follows. His artistic ambition. But it doesn't make him childish, it makes him powerful. —Insanul Ahmed

23. Jay Z & Kanye West "The Joy"

Album: Watch The Throne

A Pete Rock-produced "G.O.O.D. Friday" release from the lead up to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and, later, a bonus track on Watch the Throne, "The Joy" flips a Curtis Mayfield sample for Kanye West and Jay-Z to reminisce over. "The joy of children laughing around you," Mayfield sings, his voice drawn from a gentle live rendition of "The Makings of You." In his first verse, Kanye talks a little shit, a dedication to those he raps for, leading into some inspired sex play: "She in her birthday suit 'cause of the damn cake/Now there's crumbs all over the damn place/And she want me to come all over her damn face." Then he gets wistful. He uses that image, that dripping semen that will inseminate nothing, to transition into contraception, wondering aloud about Planned Parenthood when nobody he knows ever "planned to be a parent in the hood."

There's this Gwendolyn Brooks poem called "the mother." If you've read it (and if you haven't, you should; it's great), you can feel her words behind Kanye's lines. "Abortions will not let you forget." She writes, "I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children." And, listening to "The Joy," you have Kanye conclude his 16 bars with, "But I still hear the ghosts of the kids I never had," the male perspective on what Brooks was describing in 1945. Some pain is universal. —Ross Scarano

22. Kanye West f/ The Game "Crack Music" (Verse 1)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: Late Registration


The first verse of "Crack Music" is Kanye at his most excellently socially conscious. The topic of choice? The oft-discussed effects of crack-cocaine on the black community in the Reagan era. 'Ye manages to get across his message, that the popularity of rap, for better or worse, is a result of the crack epidemic, without coming off as preachy—or boring. The metaphors are clever, poignant, and just complicated enough for the many types of people that make up his fan base. "Conscious rap" often falls on deaf ears—sometime you don't want to be hit over the head with sociological theories or politics. But then, of course, mainstream rap is often criticized for being empty-headed. But the two terms needs not be mutually exclusive. Kanye is Kanye because he's able to bridge the gap without sacrificing much in either respect. In "Crack Music," he does it spectacularly. —Max Goldberg

21. Slum Village f/ Kanye West & John Legend "Selfish"

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: Detroit Deli (A Taste of Detroit)


In the immediate afterglow of The College Dropout, as Kanye was just getting used to being a household name, the first acts that he gave guest verses to were groups that were trying to make the same backpacker crossover that he did. Relishing his new guest-star status on Slum Village's "Selfish," he anoints himself the "new version of Pete Rock." But the song is not so much a heat rock as it is a lighthearted relationship rap, one in the vein of the tune that broke Slum Village through to radio a couple years earlier, "Tainted." More than most Kanye verses from the era, his rhymes on "Selfish" feel like a 2004 time capsule, with references to 3LW and Fonzworth Bentley, as well as an heiress-tweaking line that sounds a little funnier now given recent events: "I got Paris, he got Nicky/He tried to get him a clone." —Al Shipley

20. Chris Brown f/ Drake, T.I., Kanye West, Fabolous, Rick Ross, André 3000 "Deuces (Remix)"

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: Deuces Remix EP


Kanye would flesh out his bitter feelings about his two-year affair with Amber Rose on his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. But he got a head start here, guesting on Chris Brown's "Deuces (Remix)"—and, as Q-Tip might put it, it ain't nothin' nice. Every line laced with venom, Kanye takes the time to shout out Amber's mom and gives poor Wiz Khalifa a backhanded dap for scooping up the curvaceous former model on the rebound.

But the stingingest words are reserved for Amber herself. "Get your mind right, baby, or get your shit together/You gonna be hot a little while, I'mma be rich forever." Ouch! —Edwin Ortiz

19. Kanye West "We Don't Care" (Verse 2)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: The College Dropout


Kanye West arrived on the hip-hop landscape during the heights of drug dealer chic—a time when it seemed like a great career liability to oadmit that you had never sold cocaine. So it was with knowing irony that The College Dropout opened up with a song about just that topic. Instead of first person crime tales, Kanye frames the problem in the context of black poverty—explaining the hustle as a way to get over on a system that offers little with its pitiful miminum wage: "We put shit on layaway, then come back/We claim other people's kids on our income tax/We take that money, cop work, then push packs to get paid." —Al Shipley

18. Kanye West f/ GLC & Consequence "Spaceship"

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: The College Dropout


Kanye raps about damn near everything, but if there's one subject that seems to be his favorite, it's his career. On "Spaceships," Kanye takes us into the earliest stages of his come up, so early that he doesn't have any success to speak of. What makes this verse so great, besides the excellent storytelling and classic lines like "But let some black people walk in/I bet you they show off their token blackie," is the raw emotion you can hear in Ye's voice. When he says, "Lock yourself in a room doing five beats a day for three summers" not only can you picture him doing just that, but you can feel his dedication, frustration, and hunger. If you ever forget where the dude who just dropped 750 K on gold toilets came from, peep this verse for a refresher. —Max Goldberg

17. Kanye West & DJ Khaled "Cold" (Verse 2)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: Cruel Summer


After the success of the "Mercy," the first single off Cruel Summer, "Cold" (formerly "Theraflu") was the perfect platform for Kanye to declare his love for Kim Kardashian, among other acknowledgements to his personal life. The first verse sets 'Ye up for some of the hottest bars of his entire career: a few Paris references, style, and the infamous play on Ma$e's "Lookin' At Me" in the hook. But once the "And the whole industry wanna fuck your old chick" line kicks off the second verse, you're in for Kanye's reflection on his break-up with Amber Rose, his newfound respect for Wiz Khalifa, and some very open talk about his new leading lady, Kim Kardashian. It was the line heard 'round the world: "And I'll admit I fell in love with Kim/Round the same time she fell in love with him/Well that's cool, baby girl do ya thang/Lucky I ain't have Jay drop him from the team." Shots fucking fired.

Kim and Kanye's relationship goes way back, but the verse offered the best of 'Ye: his emotions and his true lack of fucks to give as he reveals some of his most personal moments. It's a feat to see him showcase his love without the guise of auto tune or a slowed, stripped beat, a boastful acknowledgement of the love of his life—and, of course, how well dressed he is (he'll motherfucking embarrass you). —Lauren Nostro

16. Kanye West "Black Skinhead" (Verse 1)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: Yeezus


The first verse of "Black Skinhead" is one of the most economical on Yeezus, a unapologetic assertion of blackness pushed directly into the television screens of middle America through a live performance on Saturday Night Live. It's starkly minimal, with explicit references to balck American political history ("My 'By Any Means' on...") And, as ever, Kanye ties it into the personal. He presents himself as an avatar for success—showing how, far from alleviating the injustices of America's racial history, it magnifies the scrutiny. —David Drake

15. Kanye West, Jay Z & Big Sean "Clique"

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: Cruel Summer


Over the thumping, ominous beat, and after the operatic thrashing drum break signaling the next verse, Kanye arrives, seemingly miles from the top of the track. He starts with the most important meal of the day: Breakfast. At Gucci. A traditional Kanye brag. The next one, however—like every line he's dropped about Kim Kardashian without actually dropping her name, especially on Cruel Summer—wasn't: "My girl a superstar/All from a home movie." Kanye West took the thing that's been the source of cultural mockery for his lady (the fact that she rose to fame off of a sex tape, and only a sex tape), and turns it into an asset, a qualification, like a Nobel Prize winner starting out by discovering the method for huffing glue. If that isn't fun enough for you, there's that whole thing about casually dropping former CIA director George Tenet's name (yes, he really met him), or how white people spend money, and what he'd rather do with it (even if it makes Spike Lee mad). And then, more turbo-charged Kanye braggadocio, with double-downs: He could build a new Rome in a day. Forget this rap shit, he really just wants to design hotels. He's feeling so real, he's Isrealin.

But it's the final couplet that takes this one home, and into the pantheon of truly incredible Kanye verses. It begins with the first true acknowledgement on record of how he reacted to his mother's death. And then, the second half, and the way the verse ends: How, among the other things he's done that you haven't, he's been talking to God, and guess what? As evidenced, God's been talking back. It's such a "Fuck you" moment of brilliant blasphemy that you should be ashamed for not seeing Yeezus—an album where he recounts an entire conversation with Jesus, among other things—coming from a mile away. Nobody might be fucking with Kanye's clique, but after a closer like that, it's hard to remember who's even in it that would matter but him. —Foster Kamer

14. Kanye West f/ Jay Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, Bon Iver "Monster"

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy


When people think about "Monster," they think about Nicki Minaj's verse. As well they should, it was a career making moment for her. But that shouldn't overshadow Kanye's wordplay and delivery during his verse. Kanye isn't saying anything that meaningful on the track, it's mostly just him stunting on how awesome he is ("Do the rap and the track, triple double no assists"). The verse is more of a technical achievement than a lyrical one as he weaves through his rhymes, putting extra emphasis on the "ooos" in "pharaoh" and "boo" in "Malibooyah" without ever stepping out of pocket or running out of breath—a feat a younger Kanye surely couldn't have pulled off. Technically adept and hilarious ("Head of the class and she just want a swallowship"), it's a virtuoso performance, even if he was just goofing off. —Insanul Ahmed

13. Kanye West "New Slaves" (Verse 2)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: Yeezus


It was the first thing the world heard from the gospel of Yeezus: Broadcast on walls around the world, seen through YouTube and Vine, a brief, barely three-minute performance of a song that's two verses and a bridge. But it didn't really hit home until it was actually there, in our homes, when Kanye delivered it during his second Saturday Night Live performance. Performing with an extreme close-up of his face broadcast behind him, he started with the second verse, a set of bars so jaw-dropping, so extreme in politics, it was hard not to rewind and rewatch on the DVR again, and again, and again. And then wonder: "How the hell did he just get away with saying that on broadcast televsion?" And that's the censored version.

The seething anger that drives what's arguably Kanye's most political verse shouldn't really surprise anyone. And yet, no matter how many times you listen to it, there's still something shocking about hearing what Kanye will do to your Hamptons spouse, what he thinks of your corporation, what he knows about the price of pussy, what he thinks of your contracts and the Maybach you throw in, how he's going to deprive the American public of his family, and how he'll do that not just because of the idiots who think he's part of some Illuminati conspiracy, but also because they're missing the reality of our government conspiring with corporations to imprison young black men en masse. And how—while other rappers are trying to punch up the party—Kanye's already done that, and now he's on to more important things, like burning your party the fuck down.

When Kanye asks at the end of the brilliant, capital-I Important second verse of "New Slaves" what anybody can say now, the only remotely fair response is a question: What else is there to say? —Foster Kamer

12. Jay Z & Kanye West "New Day"

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: Watch The Throne


With all the talk that Watch the Throne was just about putting supermodels in a cab and hanging out with art dealers like Larry Gagosian, critics seem to forget there was some real substance on songs like "Murder to Excellence" and "New Day." As we've previously argued, WTT is essentially a house that Kanye built but Jay actually lived in-the album's aesthetic was all Kanye but Jay dominated time on the mic.

However, on "New Day" Kanye actually outraps Jay as they both rhyme about the sons they never had (they would both go on to have daughters after dropping this song). In talking about his unborn child, Kayne ends up revealing more about his own psyche than ever before, admitting to a longing for wanting to be liked rather than basking in his own awesomeness, "See, I just want him to have an easy life/Not like Yeezy life, just want him to be someone people like/Don't want him to be hated all the time." Not a bad few lines from an album supposedly devoted to materialism. —Insanul Ahmed

11. Young Jeezy f/ Kanye West "Put On"

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: The Recession


Young Jeezy was in the midst of a creative comeback on The Recession, the centerpiece of which was the Wagnerian, Drumma Boy-produced club-banger "Put On." For Kanye, meanwhile, it was the summer before "Love Lockdown" and 808s and Heartbreak, but this verse marked a radical change of direction. He had seen the writing on the wall and was in the process of reinventing his music entirely. Looking back now, the path for the next few years was laid out here: Autotune was in, and his verses had shifted into a new, stripped down, rawly autobiographical perspective. He remained hungry, which he indicated with a typically memorable opening line ("I feel like there's still niggas that owe me checks/I feel like it's still bitches that owe me sex"). Then he detonated his previous Benz-and-a-backpack stunting raps ("I got the Jesus on the chain and that don't mean shit") and shifted to more sex-obsessed lyrical terrain, presaging his recent output. Meanwhile, he begins to pepper his verses with more first-person biography: "I lose the only girl in the world that know me best." And a prophetic level of vulnerability: "The top so lonely." —David Drake

10. Kanye West f/ Cam'Ron & Consequence "Gone" (Verse 2)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: Late Registration


One unique art that Kanye West has mastered is orchestrating posse cuts that put his collaborators in the best possible light, while still allowing his own verses to set the tone and ultimately get center stage. The epic pre-bonus track closer to Late Registration is a prime example: If the song ended at the 4-minute mark, you might've been able to say that Kanye got upstaged, both by peak era Cam'ron and Consequence, phase one G.O.O.D. Music's most lyrical spitter in a career-defining performance.

Instead, Mr. West returned to the mic for 30 relentless bars over Jon Brion's playfully textured string arrangement, already showing signs that he was bristling at the limitations of the music industry that had just begun opening its doors for him: "I'm ahead of my time, sometimes years out/So the powers that be won't let me get my ideas out." As 'Ye might say, "Primus inter pares." —Al Shipley

9. Kanye West f/ Syleena Johnson "All Falls Down" (Verse 2)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: The College Dropout


Kanye's long, conflicted relationship with materialism and ego may not be better articulated anywhere than in the second single from College Dropout. The song opens with a third person narrative about a female protagonist, but in the second verse Kanye shifts the focus to himself, mocking his struggle for status with self-deprecating quotables like "I can't even pronounce nothin', pass that Ver-say-cee." By the end of the verse, though, things have gotten more serious. The couplet "We shine because they hate us, floss 'cause they degrade us/We trying to buy back our 40 acres" hits hard in the middle of a pretty song, invoking the specter of slavery years before "New Slaves." —Al Shipley

8. Kanye West f/ Lupe Fiasco "Touch The Sky" (Verse 1)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: Late Registration


Kanye's journey from struggling producer/rapper to hip-hop superstar is well known, and nowhere is it summarized more succinctly, humorously, and skillfully than on the first verse of "Touch The Sky." In under a minute, Kanye manages to hit all the major points detailed in his famous story on "Last Call" while delivering more than enough clever lines to keep your attention.

From his forward-thinking style choices ("Back when they thought pink polos would hurt the Roc"), to his move from the Chi to the Tri-State area ("Me and my momma hopped in that U-Haul van/Any pessimists I ain't talk to them"), to his arrival at the hip-hop summit ("A hip-hop legend, think I died/In that accident, cause this must be heaven"), 'Ye's opening verse on his most celebratory of songs is his valedictory address. Of course, in classic Kanye fashion, it came before Graduation. —Max Goldberg

7. Kanye West f/ Jamie Foxx "Gold Digger" (Verse 2)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: Late Registration


Eighteen years! EIGHTEEN YEARS! Some woman had one of your children, and now you've been paying her child support for eighteen years. As Kanye tells it that was her plan all along, and it's destroyed the lives of a Super Bowl winner who's driving a Hyundai, and those who thought they were buying their kids Tyco (and not their exes lipo). It goes without mentioning that her plastic surgery has left her looking like, yes, Michael.

Each line sharpens the blade for the next micro-tragedy, until it culminates in the reason we still, almost ten years later, love hearing this song when we're out, waiting until the moment when we—man, woman, child—cheer along with Kanye: "We want pre-nup! We want pre-nup! yeaahhhh."

But just as we all herald the virtues of pre-nuptial agreements, the Voltaire-esque kicker to the sad tale of a procreation gone wrong reveals its sorry conclusion. The time it took our fallen, gold-dug hero to find out the child in question wasn't even his? Eighteen years. Get down girl, go 'head, get down. —Foster Kamer

6. Kanye West "Can't Tell Me Nothing" (Verse 1)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: Graduation


There are more than a few very worthy reasons we've called this song both the greatest song Kanye West has to offer, and the greatest song of the Complex Decade (as well as one of the best rap songs for getting dressed). It also has one of the best opening lines of all time, maybe the only one that could possibly match the epic gravitas of the operatic, bass-heavy production: "I had a dream I could buy my way to heaven/When I awoke I spent that on a necklace."

It's a stunning opening parry in a sequence that's the first of eight flawless, showstopping bars, a purified result of Kanye's id, hubris, and conscience reacting violently against one another. He invokes his passion for Louis, admits that even his mother can't reach him on certain issues, bemoans the lack of role models for young black men, asserts his persecution complex (or the fact that he has to live in a world trying to stifle him, depending on what side you fall on), and finally, gets a top-shelf Cosby Show reference in the kicker for good measure.

It's a brilliant verse not just because it's as bombastic as it is tragic, or because it's one of the most self-aware 16s in the history of rap. It's brilliant because, for a verse about excess, it's mercilessly edited, and shows 'Ye's masterful skill at asserting the grandest of ideas in the smallest amount of space. How meta. —Foster Kamer

5. Kanye West f/ Kid Cudi & Raekwon "Gorgeous" (Verse 3)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy


"Gorgeous," as a whole, might be Kanye's best lyrical outing ever. The sample of The Turtles' "You Showed Me" sets the tone, Kid Cudi's hook ranks among his best, but Ye's rhymes about the ugly nature of race in America are perfection. There's so much to here, it's hard to pick a favorite verse.

But after discussing cops who look like Alec Baldwin in the first verse and using a fish-stick as a weapon in a revenge fantasy against South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone, it's the dramatic ending that's the best. Casually brushing off new jacks with a line like, "You blowing up? That's good, fantastic," Kanye's just gearing up to the couplet that probably best summerizes his experience as a famous person, his perseverance and bravery in facing the limelight's harsh glare. "The same people that tried to black ball me/Forgot about two things, my black balls." —Insanul Ahmed

4. Kanye West "Jesus Walks" (Verse 2)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: The College Dropout


Our basest popular music originated in the Black American churches. From gospel to rock'n'roll, it's just a couple quick steps from bible-thumping in the pews to hip-shaking in the juke joint next door. It's not surprising that the two rappers who tried to bring religion to the clubs were from Chicago, where the church is still a central pillar of the music scene. Rhymefest was performing this song well before it became a smash for Kanye West, and he ultimately received a co-writing credit. Verse two, in particular, captures how Kanye, early on, mixed a combination of grassroots-sympathizing relatability ("To the victims of welfare, for we living in hell here...") and irreverent humor ("The way Kathie Lee need Regis") to get at something greater without seeming didactic. But perhaps most significantly, it showed that 'Ye had vision, closing his verse with a confident assertion that he would have the clubs screaming out "Jesus Walks."

He was right. —David Drake

3. Jay Z & Kanye West "Niggas In Paris"

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: Watch The Throne


"Niggas in Paris" is Kanye West's most exuberant late-period stunting track, as joyous and carefree as he's sounded in years. Full of unforgettable, hooky lines that lodge in your head for days, the whole song has become iconic. (I guess that'll happen when you play it nine times in a row at the end of your concerts.) It's a duet, of course, on the joint album he made with his mentor Jay Z. But from the opening "mallll/ballll" rhyme scheme to his Ma$e-like false modesty of "this old thing?" to the alternative marriage plans he suggests for Prince William and the Olson twins, Kanye owns this one. (Unlike many of the songs on Watch the Throne.) There's just something completely liberating about the song's gleeful tone, a perfect exhibition of two rap masters' playfully competitive chemistry. —David Drake 

2. Jay Z f/ Kanye West & Rihanna "Run This Town"

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: The Blueprint 3


Directions for usurping a throne: Make an exciting-sounding, but ultimately overpolished and antiseptic beat. Hire the world's biggest R&B star to sing a huge, classic-rock style chorus on it. Sell the whole thing to the greatest rapper of all-time and convince him to release it as a single. Outrap him on it.

How do you outrap Jay Z, though, when he's delivering forever-memorable descriptives like "all-black everything?" How about this: "She got an ass that'll swallow up a G-string/And up top, ah, two bee stings/And I'm beasting off the Riesling/And my nigga just made it out the precinct..." 

Yup, that'll do it. —Dave Bry

1. Kanye West "Diamonds From Sierra Leone" (Verse 2)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Album: Late Registration


Late Registration's lead single, Kanye West's first big statement as a solo artist following the stunning success of The College Dropout, is bursting with brilliance. You can almost feel a young star letting loose with everything he'd been waiting to say about the state of his life and career. And somehow the 40 bar verse that closes the track feels so urgent, and yet carefully constructed, that breaking it up with a chorus for the sake of radio play would've done everybody a disservice.

Goring accustomed his burgeoning reputation as pop music's l'enfant terrible, he speaks frankly about his obsession with awards, his tantrums, and his loyalty to the faltering dynasty that birthed his career. You just know that when Jay heard that line about "a man with the power to make a diamond with his bare hands," he was made he'd never thought it up himself. —Al Shipley

Latest in Music