The Best Rap Remixes Since 2000

We may not have invented the remix, but we listened to a lot of them.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Posse cuts are a grand tradition in hip hop, but more and more over the last couple decades, the greatest of them tend not to start out that way. Now, when a song hits big, it’s just a matter of time before enough stars get thrown at the beat that it starts to resemble a DJ Khaled song.

Often, the barrage of starpower ends up being less than the sum of its parts, but now and again, a track gets the right MCs on the right beat, and a little of that “Flava In Ya Ear” magic lives again in the age of collaborations-via-e-mail. So here are The Best Rap Remixes Since 2000. I need it from the top!

Written by Al Shipley (@alshipley)

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49. Ying Yang Twins f/ Lil Scrappy, Free, Missy Elliott and Busta Rhymes "Wait (The Whisper Song) (Remix)" (2005)

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Label: TVT
Producer: Mr. Collipark

The Ying Yang Twins were perhaps the loudest, rowdiest group in Atlanta when a spare song full of lascivious whispering took their career to another level in 2005. So when it came time to remix the track, they drafted fellow loudmouths like Busta Rhymes and Missy Elliott, practically daring them to stick to the concept and keep the volume down. But the most unlikely appearance on the track was from Free, of 106 & Park's AJ & Free fame, whispering some utterly filthy things that would never get past the BET censors. The greatest contribution D-Roc and Kaine made to the remix, however, was to switch the chorus from "Wait til you see my dick" to the R. Kelly-like meta announcement, "this is the 'Wait' remix."

48. 50 Cent f/ Jay-Z and Diddy "I Get Money (Forbes 1-2-3 Remix)" (2007)

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Label: Aftermath/Interscope/Shady
Producer: Apex

The timing couldn't be more beautiful: Forbes released its first "hip-hop cash kings" list of rap's biggest moneymakers just as the list's No. 2 top earner, flush with Vitamin Water buyout cash, was killing the radio with a song called "I Get Money." So it was only right to draft the rest of the Forbes top 3 to stunt all over the track. The only problem? 50 Cent was about to release an album on the same date as Kanye West, longtime protégé of fellow cash king Jay-Z. So Hov only appeared on the track under the condition that it not drop until after the first week numbers were in, so as not to effect the outcome of the sales war, perhaps the ultimate testament to the power of the remix.

47. Terror Squad f/ Eminem and Ma$e "Lean Back (Lil Jon Remix)" (2005)

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Label: Terror Squad/Atlantic
Producer: Lil Jon, Scott Storch

Of all the 21st century's most revered mainstream MCs, none has withheld themselves from the remix circuit more studiously than Eminem, who rarely ventured outside his Shady/Aftermath bubble for collaborations in the years initially following his ascent to superstardom. But, as Fat Joe revealed to Complex, when he called Slim, his only response was "I owe you one favor. Is this it?" Scott Storch's original "Lean Back" was the hottest beat of 2004 not produced by Lil Jon, so Joey Crack let Jon take a crack at it, and made the whole thing feel like even more of an event by pulling Pastor Ma$e out of retirement.

46. DJ Unk f/ T-Pain, E-40 and Jim Jones "2 Step (Remix)" (2007)

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Label: Big Oomp/Koch
Producer: DJ Unk

It's a bit of a tradition: DJ Unk drops a remix with Jim Jones, but everyone forgets Capo's verse even exists because all the DJs want to play is the spotlight-stealing first verse. It happened with Andre 3000 on "Walk It Out," and then T-Pain stunted all over "2 Step," dropping all sorts of sound effects and bizarre phrasing in his verse, and then offering his own spin on the hook. Jones is Charlie Brown, and DJ Unk is Lucy holding out the football. Shame that E-40's closing verse got lost in the shuffle as well, though.

45. E-40 f/ French Montana, Young Jeezy, Red Café, Chris Brown and Problem "Function (Remix)" (2012)

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Label: Heavy on the Grind/EMI
Producer: Trend

"Function" was by no means a national hit on the level of "Tell Me When To Go," but it moved the West coast enough to justify a remix featuring some New York rappers and a R&B superstar. But the guest who apparently gained the most from the experience was the southern MC on the track, Young Jeezy, who'd never spit on anything remotely like the "Function" beat before, and apparently enjoyed it. Since then, we've heard Jeezy on the radio with several likeminded beats from Cali producer and E-40 collaborator DJ Mustard, including "R.I.P" and Yo Gotti's "Act Right," and Jeezy also signed YG, who appeared on the original "Function," to his CTE World imprint.

44. Yo Gotti f/ Gucci Mane, Trina and Nicki Minaj "5 Star Bitch (Remix)" (2009)

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43. Clipse f/ N.O.R.E., Birdman and Lil Wayne "Grindin' (Remix)" (2002)

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Label: Star Trak/Arista
Producer: The Neptunes

A decade before Lil Wayne was declaring "Fuck Pusha T and anybody that love him," it was all good between Clipse as Cash Money, from "What Happened To That Boy" to Weezy and Birdman's appearance on one of the remixes to "Grindin'" (which was followed, on the Lord Willin' bonus tracks, by a second dancehall-flavored 'selector remix' with Sean Paul and Kardinal Offishall). N.O.R.E. makes an interesting case for what the song could've sounded like if the Neptunes had given the track to one of their other favorite artists, while Pusha rearranged the chorus in a fresh new way.

42. The Game f/ 50 Cent, Lloyd Banks, Young Buck and Tony Yayo "Hate It Or Love It (G-Unit Remix)" (2005)

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Label: Aftermath/Interscope/Shady
Producer: Cool & Dre, Dr. Dre (add.)

The Game was a member of G-Unit for little more than a year before the arranged marriage of Jimmy Iovine's dreams began to fall apart very publicly, and Tony Yayo was only a free man for about 9 months of that time. So there isn't a lot of music from G-Unit with all five of the hip hop supergroup's members in the fold, and the quintet's last, most famous collaboration helped lead to the split. With Game's 50 Cent-assisted "Hate It Or Love It" rocketing up the charts on the heels of The Documentary's release in early 2003, the crew came together to remix it as a bonus track for Fiddy's new album, The Massacre.

41. Chinx Drugs f/ French Montana, Diddy, and Rick Ross "I'm A Coke Boy (Remix)" (2012)

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Label: self-released
Producer: Harry Fraud

Harry Fraud’s sizzling string loop on “I’m A Coke Boy” was made for an epic posse cut, which Chinx’s famous hookman French Montana flaunting his status as the only rapper with a Bad Boy chain and an MMG chain. Rozay imagines an alternate history where he might’ve been a bus driver, as usual willfully ignoring the day job in his past that we all know about. Meanwhile, Diddy pictures all the ways he could’ve been more gangsta and had more street cred, instead of on his way to billionaire status.

40. Rich Boy f/ Andre 3000, Game, Jim Jones, Murphy Lee and Nelly "Throw Some D's (Lil Jon Remix)" (2007)

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Label: Zone 4/Interscope
Producer: Lil Jon

Rich Boy's breakthrough hit was also a coming-out party for his buddy Polow Da Don, who penned a standout verse in addition to co-producing the track's irresistible loop of Switch's '70s R&B chestnut "I Call Your Name." For the Lil Jon-produced remix, however, the track took on an entirely different tone, with Lil Jon's crunk 808s and synths dominating the mix and a strange mix of superstars parading through the verses, all of them invariably overshadowed by Andre 3000 in the thick of his surprise attack on the remix circuit in 2007. Nelly sounded particularly at home on the track, paying tribute to Polow's singsong flow in his verse, while Jim Jones won no points for imagination rhyming "Rich Boy" with "we all wanna be rich, boy."

39. Mr. Cheeks f/ P. Diddy and Missy Elliott "Lights, Camera, Action (Remix)" (2002)

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38. Soulja Boy Tell 'Em f/ Lil' Wayne, Young Jeezy and Fabolous "Turn My Swag On (Remix)" (2008)

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37. Maino f/ T.I., Swizz Beatz, Plies, Jadakiss and Fabolous "Hi Hater (Remix)" (2008)

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Label: Hustle Hard/Atlantic
Producer: Mista Raja, Maino (co.)

The charm of the original "Hi Hater" was always how good-natured and easy on the ears the track comes across, compared to your average rapper's anti-hater diatribe. And the guests on the remix thankfully seem to get that: T.I. literally says "imagine how much fun I'm having" in a verse that focuses on what he's got that makes the haters jealous rather than the haters themselves. And Plies is unusually lucid, noting "9 outta 10 rappers is haters/ they get emotional when they ain't got paper." Instead, it's New York rap remix vets Jadakiss and Fabolous that come off a little bland, while Swizz Beatz is unwisely given his own verse and stammers out, "Hi, my name is Swizz, your name is hater."

36. Jadakiss f/ Styles P., Common and Nas "Why (Remix)" (2004)

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35. Young Jeezy f/ Jay-Z "My President Is Black (Remix)" (2008)

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Label: CTE/Def Jam
Producer: Tha Bizness

Dozens, if not hundreds of Obama rap anthems sprang up during the prez’s 2008 campaign, with Young Jeezy and Nas scoring the most successful and memorable one of it all. So it only made sense for Nasir’s foe turned friend, the rapper with the most buddy-buddy relationship with the prez-elect himself, to grab the guest spot on the remix that dropped the week of the inauguration. Never one to stay too politically correct, though, Hov opened his verse with the irreverent couplet, “My president is black, in fact he’s half-white/ So even in a racist mind, he’s half-right.”

34. Jermaine Dupri f/ Snoop Dogg, Murphy Lee and P. Diddy "Welcome To Atlanta (Coast 2 Coast Remix)" (2002)

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Label: So So Def/Columbia
Producer: Jermaine Dupri

ATL was just beginning to become the new epicenter of the rap universe when Jermaine Dupri and Ludacris dropped a hometown anthem that the whole country showed love for. So when it came time for a remix, J.D. decided to show the love back, heading to the North, West, and Midwest to find superstar representatives from each region (or one of their friends, if Nelly wasn't available). But nobody relished the moment more than Diddy, who, less than a year after 9/11, stood proudly atop the Madison Square Garden entrance in the video, defiantly declaring "We're still here...and we're building four more towers!"

33. Missy Elliott f/ Jay-Z "One Minute Man (Remix)" (2001)

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Label: Goldmind/Elektra
Producer: Timbaland

Jay-Z brims with an incredible amount of confidence on this track, which he'd have to to willingly play the role of the "One Minute Man," as Ludacris avoided doing on the original. Jay even enters the track by issuing a friendly wager to whoever was in the studio that day: "Fifty grand I get this on one take!" (we take it Jay kept his money). Most entertaining of all is how Jay, at the height of his womanizing Jigga era, chooses to dismiss his one minute stand, considering who he was booed up with little more than a year later: "Getcha independent ass out of here—question?"

32. Busta Rhymes f/ Mary J. Blige, Missy Elliott, Rah Digga, Lloyd Banks, Papoose and DMX "Touch It (Remix)" (2006)

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Label: Aftermath/Interscope
Producer: Swizz Beatz

Given the way Busta Rhymes has dominated the remix circuit over the years, it seemed like he relished the opportunity to do it big on his own remix in 2006, when the Daft Punk-sampling "Touch It" became his biggest street record in years. So he set about stuffing the track with verses until it was bursting at the seams, and when all was said and done, the ladies killed it, even Mary J. Blige in her rapping alter ego "Brooke." But the marquee attractions at the time were DMX, blustering his way through another ill-fated comeback attempt, and Papoose, then enjoying his brief reign as NYC hip-hop's next big thing with a memorably corny metaphor about how each of his fingers represented one of the five boroughs.

31. Kanye West f/ Jay-Z and Swizz Beatz "Power (Remix)" (2010)

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30. Lil Jon & The Eastside Boyz f/ Busta Rhymes and Elephant Man – "Get Low (Remix)" (2003)

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Label: TVT
Producer: Lil Jon

If Busta Rhymes wasn't already the king of rap remixes in the '90s thanks to classic reworks of "Flava In Ya Ear" and "Scenario," he took his throne early in the 21st century by transcending the increasing regional divisions in hip hop. In 2003, when the southern rap anthems "Get Low," "Never Scared" and "Like A Pimp" ran the summer, Busta was the only northerner invited to stomp across all three. A couple years later, Joe Budden claimed he was Lil Jon's first choice, and lost his chance due to legal entanglements between Def Jam and TVT, but we all know Busta Rhymes owned that spot, even if he played dumb, announcing, "You can't believe I'm on this shit, too!" Meanwhile, Elephant Man took it even further south, putting some welcome dancehall flavor pon de remix. Everythin gon' be wonderful!

29. Rick Ross f/ Jay-Z and Young Jeezy "Hustlin' (Remix)" (2006)

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Label: Slip-n-Slide, Def Jam, Poe Boy
Producer: The Runners

Jay-Z’s three year run as president of Def Jam garnered mixed reviews, but the label launched some big careers during his tenure. Most notably, Young Jeezy in the summer of 2005 and Rick Ross in the summer of 2006. When “Hustlin’” powered the latter’s #1 chart debut, Hov gathered together both of his new southern rap rainmakers for an event remix. Jeezy trumpets his crimeworld connections, putting a twist on one of Ross’s quotables from the original on the line “I know Big Meech, the real Big Meech.” This, of course, is a little ironic considering that years later, they’d be beefing over Rozay daring to namedrop Jeezy’s homies on “B.M.F.”

28. Future f/ Ludacris and Diddy "Same Damn Time (Remix)" (2012)

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27. Fabolous f/ Drake and The-Dream "Throw It In The Bag (Remix)" (2009)

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26. 50 Cent f/ Mobb Deep "Outta Control (Remix)" (2005)

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Label: G-Unit/Shady/Aftermath/Interscope
Producer: Dr. Dre, Mike Elizondo

In the mid-2000s, when albums were still selling millions upon millions, but often needed a deluxe reissue with new singles after a few months to keep shifting units, remixes became a whole new promotional tool. So when The Massacre was ready to cruise to its fourth big hit single, 50 Cent decided to retool one of the album's most intense club bangers, "Outta Control," as a decidedly more laid back remix. But what really made the song an event was the inclusion of 50's latest signings, Mobb Deep, who were so influential on the whole G-Unit sound that it seemed like a match made in gangsta rap heaven. That proved not to be the case when Blood Money dropped with a thud a year later, but for a moment "Outta Control" was a Top 10 coup for the veteran group who'd never even had a Top 40 hit.

25. ASAP Rocky f/ Gucci Mane, Waka Flocka Flame, & Pharrell "Pretty Flacko (Remix)" (2012)

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24. G. Dep f/ P. Diddy, Ghostface Killah, Keith Murray and Craig Mack "Special Delivery (Remix)" (2002)

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23. Cam'ron f/ Ludacris, Juelz Santana, Trina and UGK "What Means The World To You (Trackmasters Remix)" (2000)

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22. Nas f/ Hip-Hop All-Stars "Where Are They Now (80s Remix)," "Where Are They Now (90s Remix)," "Where Are They Now (West Coast Remix)"

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21. Young Jeezy f/ Jay-Z "Put On (Remix)" (2008)

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20. Jim Jones f/ T.I., Diddy, Birdman and Young Dro "We Fly High (Remix)" (2006)

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Label: Koch/Diplomat
Producer: Zukhan-Bey

"You know we can't have one of nothin', so we had to double up," Jim Jones says at the top of the remix of his breakthrough hit. And true to that philosophy, we get two members of several camps: Juelz tags along with Jones to represent Dipset, Lil Wayne stunts with his daddy Birdman, and T.I. brings Grand Hustle protégé Young Dro, who all but steals the show with vivid word salads like "skatin' on ice like Kristy Yamaguchi, sittin' up in the Chevy eatin' blowfish sushi." The one and only Diddy also shows up to remind us he's "still spending old money, 'Benjamins' remix 10 year ago money," unfortunately giving Juelz completely undeserved permission to rap over the same sample from Biggie's "It's All About The Benjamins" verse.

19. Shawty Lo f/ Ludacris, Young Jeezy, Plies and Lil Wayne "Dey Know (Remix)" (2007)

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18. Meek Mill f/ Rick Ross, T.I., Lil Wayne, Birdman, Swizz Beatz and DJ Khaled "Ima Boss (Remix)" (2011)

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Label: Maybach Music/Warner Bros.
Producer: Jahlil Beats

Rick Ross was right in the middle of his ascent to superstardom in 2011 when a pair of seizures put The Bawse in the hospital and had the whole hip hop world concerned for his health. But instead of scheduling an interview with Oprah to talk about his close shave with death, he jumped on the star-filled remix of his big summer hit with Meek Mill and cleared the air with a typically carefree outlook: "Had a couple seizures, call 'em minor setbacks/Everybody prayin' for me, I respect that/Woke up in the hospital, where my checks at?/Then I put 8 chains where my neck's at."

17. Ludacris f/ Trina, Shawnna and Foxy Brown "What's Your Fantasy (Remix)" (2000)

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Label: Disturbing tha Peace/Def Jam
Producer: Bangladesh

The original "What's Your Fantasy," while one of the greatest sex raps to ever hit the mainstream, was light on a female perspective, with Shawnna merely repeating Luda's own words for half the hook. So when it came time to do a remix, not only did Shawnna get a verse, but so did two female legends of the explicit rap game, Foxy Brown and Trina, get things real nasty. A decade later, Luda attempted a similar female all-star approach to the remix of "My Chick Bad," but it just wasn't the same.

16. Young Jeezy f/ Jay-Z "Go Crazy (Remix)" (2011)

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Label: CTE/Def Jam
Producer: Don Cannon

Young Jeezy had the entire south locked down after Trap Or Die, but his campaign needed some up-north support before Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101 was ready to dominate the whole country. And he got it when Def Jam president Jay-Z decided to give the label's newest star the big co-sign at the last minute, hopping on a remix of the soulful horn-driven track (produced by Philly native Don Cannon) that was appended to the album just before it went to the pressing plant. The only loser in the arrangement was Fat Joe, whose verse riffing on Prince's "Pop Life" was quietly swept under the rug as the track became known as a Jeezy/Jay-Z duet.

15. David Banner f/ Twista and Busta Rhymes "Like A Pimp (Remix)" (2003)

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Label: SRC/Universal
Producer: David Banner

"Like A Pimp" was David Banner's breakthrough solo hit, but it was also the feature that made Lil Flip briefly seem like Southern rap's next superstar. Making a remix that doesn't include the rapper with the original song's most popular and quotable verse is always a tall order, but Banner took the shrewd route of swapping out Flip's laid back Texas energy for the vicious and energized doubletime flows of two of rap's greatest fast talkers Twista and Busta Rhymes, mere months before "Slow Jamz" became Twista's own big crossover moment.

14. Dead Prez f/ Jay-Z "Hell Yeah (Pimp the System) (Remix)" (2004)

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Label: Columbia/Sony Urban Music
Producer: Downbeat Production Collective, Stic

From its initial release, on the 2 Fast 2 Furious soundtrack, to its subversively BET-friendly video, "Hell Yeah" was dead prez's biggest power play to get their anti-establishment message to the largest audience possible and pimp the system from the inside out. And while that may not have changed the world with revolutionary sales figures, they seized an impressive bit of the spotlight by getting the biggest rapper in the world on the track's remix.

Jay's own case for the subversive element of his success ("I'm only trying to show you how black niggas live/But you don't want your little ones actin' like this/Lil Amy told Becky, Beck told Jenny") has echoes in his more recent comments on Miley Cyrus twerking. But it's on the song's outro that he makes explicit the message sent by collaborating with dead prez: "We broke those boxes y'all try to put us in to separate us, y'know what I mean! We together on the same track now, baby! What you gon' call us now?"

13. Chief Keef f/ Kanye West, Pusha T, Big Sean and Jadakiss "I Don't Like (G.O.O.D. Music Remix)" (2012)

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Label: G.O.O.D. Music/Def Jam
Producer: Young Chop, Kanye West (co.), The Twilite Zone (add.), Noah Goldstein (add.)

Remixes often expose the divide between where a hit song can begin, with a relatively unknown young rapper and producer knocking out a track in a home studio, and where it can end up, with some of the biggest stars in the game rapping over the same song. And no remix revealed that rift more than the G.O.O.D. Music remix of Chief Keef's "I Don't Like," which found Chicago's most famous MC, Kanye West, co-signing the city's controversial new rising star. In typical Kanye fashion, the track was loaded up with verses from Pusha T, Big Sean and Jadakiss, as well as all sorts of musical bells and whistles. And as it turns out, that's the shit that the original track's producer Young Chop don't like. But later on, the two generations of Chi-town rap got back on the same page, with both Keef and Chop contributing to West's album Yeezus.

12. Bone Crusher f/ Busta Rhymes, Cam'ron and Jadakiss "Never Scared (The Takeover Remix)" (2003)

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Label: So So Def/Arista
Producer: Avery Johnson

Bone Crusher demolished the summer of 2003 with the help of two of Atlanta's best up-and-coming lyricists, T.I. and Killer Mike, so for the remix he turned to three New York institutions who paid tribute to that huge, ominous beat. Cam'ron's knotty internal rhyme style was at its peak, ending his verse with "We got guns and coupes, in case I sun the roof, no basketball when we talkin' 'run and shoot.'" Meanwhile, Jada gets his cackle on, and Busta Rhymes manages to say as little as possible in as many flows as he can manage.

11. Waka Flocka Flame f/ Diddy, Rick Ross, and Gucci Mane "O Let's Do It (Remix) (2009)

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Label: 1017 Brick Squad/Asylum/Warner Bros.
Producer: L-Don Beatz

It's a strange state of affairs that you could hear talk, after the "O Let's Do It" remix dropped, of Diddy outshining Rick Ross, considering that Diddy almost certainly did not write his own verse, and that it was more than likely that Rozay was the one writing both of their verses. But that's the beauty of Diddy: Other rappers can write lines like "I got my billions up" or "All I touch is J.Lo's," but it only hits with the power of truth, or plausibility, when he says it.

10. DJ Unk f/ OutKast and Jim Jones "Walk It Out (Remix)" (2006)

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Label: Big Oomp/Koch
Producer: DJ Unk

By now, we're used to Andre 3000's semi-annual sneak attacks on the rap game to remind us what he's capable of. But in the summer of 2007, a year after Idlewild demonstrated that his passion for rhyming was still MIA, the last place anyone expected to hear was on the remix to one of young Atlanta's biggest ringtone rap anthems. But there he was, critiquing mainstream hip-hop culture from the inside as astutely as ever, taking potshots at white tees and offering the bon mot, "If you say real talk, I probably won't trust ya." Then, he signed off a humblebragging promise that he'd be doing this again: "Not sayin' I'm the best, but til they find something better, I am here, no fear." Arguably, we still haven't.

9. Kendrick Lamar f/ Jay-Z "Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe (Remix)" (2013)

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Label: Top Dawg/Aftermath/Interscope
Producer: Sounwave

If a rising rap star never crosses paths with Jay-Z on their way up, on friendly terms or otherwise, then odds are they will when they get to the top. Just as K. Dot's good kid, m.A.A.d city was racking up a platinum plaque, Shawn Carter finally decided to acknowledge the TDE breakout star's existence, laying a verse to the album's third single.

For his part, Kendrick seems initially nonchalant about the moment, reflecting on sales before saying, "So what? Y'all keep the numbers, I'm more than another statistic." But it isn't until Jay spits his verse that the main event turns out to be Kendrick's second verse, rhyming circles around his old hero and putting insane new patterns onto the beat that he'd already killed once.

8. DJ Khaled f/ Young Jeezy, Ludacris, Busta Rhymes, Big Boi, Lil Wayne, Fat Joe, Birdman and Rick Ross "I'm So Hood (Remix)" (2007)

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7. Swizz Beatz f/ Lil Wayne, R. Kelly and Jadakiss "It's Me, Bitches (Remix)" (2007)

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Label: Full Surface/Universal Motown
Producer: Swizz Beatz

The original "It's Me, Bitches" was a deeply weird song to begin with, and the only way to make the song more over-the-top was to kick off the remix with two of music's oddest geniuses at the top of their respective games. Weezy, in perhaps the finest remix performance out of a hall of fame run, slips in and out of French and coins the phrase that would later inspire his biggest solo hit: "She's so sweet, make her wanna lick the wrapper...so I let her lick the rapper."

Meanwhile, Kells does operatic runs and Jennifer Hudson impressions and crowns himself "Mr. Song of the Week" just when he was running through hits and remixes at a blinding pace. And then, when it couldn't get any crazier, Swizz switches up to his beat for Beyonce's "Get Me Bodied," and ties together the Wu Tang reference in the original hook by ending with eight bars of Jadakiss rapping over the "C.R.E.A.M." beat that could've easily been its own song.

6. Fat Joe f/ Lil Wayne, R. Kelly, Birdman, T.I., Rick Ross and Ace Mac "Make It Rain (Remix)" (2007)

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Label: Terror Squad/Imperial
Producer: Scott Storch

Bless R. Kelly for lacking the self-awareness to avoid appearing on a song that lends itself to easy jokes like "Make It Rain" (the same goes for his recent remix of Kelly Rowland's "Dirty Laundry"). After years of memorably remixing his own songs, Kells began hopping on posse cut remixes of others' hits in 2005, beginning with T-Pain's "I'm N Luv (Wit A Stripper)" and, a few months later, another strip club anthem from Fat Joe.

It might've seemed strange at the time for Lil Wayne to merely do a hook on the original, but as we learned in Complex's interview with Fat Joe, it was Joey Crack himself who wrote the chorus and merely had Weezy perform it. So on the remix Wayne finally got to lay bars to that triumphant beat, alongside someone named Ace Mack who was never heard from again, while T.I. rapped his ass off to show up everyone besides R. Kelly.

5. Lil Wayne f/ Kanye West "Lollipop (Remix)" (2008)

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4. Nas f/ Jadakiss and Ludacris "Made You Look (Remix)" (2003)

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3. Kanye West f/ Jay-Z "Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix)" (2005)

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Label: Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam
Producer: Kanye West, Jon Brion (co.), Devo Springsteen (co.)

On the original "Diamonds," Roc-A-Fella's newest breakout star pledged his continued loyalty to the Roc, shrugging off questions like, "What's up with you and Jay, are y'all okay, man?" On the remix, Hov himself cut through Kanye's verse to leave no ambiguity, "Yup! I got this from here, Ye, damn." Then, Jay ran through the 32 greatest bars of his three year "retirement," including some of his greatest quotables of all time. Seriously, how many times has "I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man" been reprinted just this summer?

2. M.O.P. f/ Busta Rhymes and Remy Ma "Ante Up (Remix)" (2000)

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1. Talib Kweli f/ Busta Rhymes, Mos Def, Kanye West and Jay-Z "Get By (Remix)" (2003)

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