17 Rap Bloggers Name Their Favorite Rapper

Image via Complex Original

Website: NahRight
Twitter: @NahRight
Favorite Rapper: Cam'ron

My Favorite Rapper is Cam'ron.

Truth be told, with a gun to my head, I'd have to say Jay Z is my all-time favorite MC. But right now, at this moment in time, Cam is edging Hov out in the battle for my heart and mind. It's not about skill—although Killa is a top tier lyricist and I don't care to debate this. For me it's all about consistency.

I could blindfold myself and dip into any stretch of Cam's catalog and the odds are excellent that I'll be happy with what I pull out. This is increasingly difficult to do with any number of rappers' bodies of work, and that includes presumed G.O.A.T.S. like Jay and Nas. Like an oddball anchor in a sea of mediocrity, Cam has always been there for me with absurd metaphors and blustery bombast. And he always will be.

Website: SmokingSection
Twitter: @JohnGotty
Favorite Rapper: 2Pac

I've got 30 years of rap music tucked away, so whittling it down to one specific artist to rank as a favorite isn't exactly easy. But if I got stuck on an island with one artist's discography, I'd prefer those discs all belong to 2Pac. From a party to political statements, violence to lovemaking, no one rapper's music covered more ground. "Passion and fury" run throughout all of Pac's work and each song serves its purpose: to tap into the listeners' emotions. Almost 20 years removed from his death, Pac's spirit stokes the fires when I hear his music. I imagine it'll do the same for the next 20 years, too.

Website: TheFader
Twitter: @NomiZeichner
Favorite Rapper: Future

When people ask how I got into rap, the story has always been OutKast. It essentially boiled down to the Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik interlude "True Dat," which says an OutKast is "looked at differently," "fuck being anything else," and to "take back your existence or die like a punk." Preached by Big Rube, "True Dat" isn't even a proper rap song, it's just pure spoken word shit talk witnessed by Andre and Big Boi.

Growing up, I held both men up like big brothers, the moral compasses by which I should live my life and judge all rap. I was fond of Big in particular, maybe because he led my favorite songs—"Slump," "Hootie Hoo," "West Savannah." In the stupid New York Times "granola vs. gangster" binary, Dre was the visionary—but to me Big was always funnier. I liked that he talked about his feelings and family with a wide-open plainness, not in clever tangles. When he collaborated with the Atlanta Ballet in 2008, I flew home to Georgia from college and stood up with my entire family for an ovation on opening night.

A couple years later, with some luck and by surprise, I started writing about rap as a job. I heard Future through a coworker and fell hard on first listen. The Dungeon Family roots—he's Rico Wade's cousin, and started rapping as Meathead in the blink-and-you-missed-them Dungeon Family group Da Connect—helped me explain my excitement about Future's music to other people. But I don't like him because he sounds like them.

Future stubbornly makes it so that he doesn't sound like anyone has ever sounded. He's a passionate optimist; happily wrecking his voice, slurring grand emotions, and holing up in the studio. When the beat drops out on recent buzz single "Sh!t," and he croak-screams "YOU A GOON YOU A GOON YOU A GOON," his vigor's heart-stopping.

Big and Dre were important guides as I grew up, but I love Future because he feels like an adult peer. He's trying to live a great life on his own terms, and that's what OutKast were always about too. The energy on "Sh!t" is an ecstatic reminder of that old "True Dat" refrain: "It's only so much time left in this crazy world." Don't blow it.

Website: TheMartorialist
Twitter: N/A
Favorite Rapper: Slick Rick

When you're asked to indulge in childish fanboy games like picking your favorite rapper ever, there's only one honest method you can use to decide your G.O.A.T: You choose the one whose catalog you'd whittle down to a 21-song best of CD-R to take to a desert island with you to while away the time as you roast wild pigs, drink coconut milk, and slowly get nibbled to raw pulp by mosquitoes. So Slick Rick is my man. Here's why:

1. He's the rapper who made me fall in love with rap music when I saw him and Doug E. Fresh performing "The Show" on Top Of The Pops in the mid '80s as an Inspector Gadget-obsessed kid. Your first love is always a love that's true.

2. He's the Orson Welles of this Rap shit. His first full length was a genre-defining masterpiece. Its subsequent follow-ups have been misunderstood hatchet-jobs that were sabotaged by legal or label issues but which still contain moments of sheer brilliance. His catalog is rounded out to G.O.A.T status by non-album cuts like "La Di Da Di," "Treat Her Like A Prostitute (Movie Vesion)," and "I Sparkle," unreleased gems like "Captain Caveman" and "Sleazy Gynecologist," and fine cameo verses on classic songs like CRU's "Just Another Case," OutKast's "Da Art Of Storytellin'," and Ghostface and Raekwon's "The Sun."

3. He has a timeless rhyme style that's never altered from when he first debuted on "The Show" and "La Di Di Da" in 1985. It's a melodic, almost conversational flow which derives from Spoonie Gee. It went on to be the blueprint for other all time greats as diverse as Q-Tip, Mac Dre, Snoop Dogg, AZ, MF DOOM, and Max B. Even if I never hear another rapper again as I'm Robinson Crusoe-ing it up on my mythical desert island, the spirits of rap greats past and present all linger in his music.

4. He had the good sense to retire from releasing full lengths so there's no chance of him sullying his legacy with half-baked comeback albums (hello Rakim, Ice Cube, Common, Jay Z!). When he does pop up for a brief cameo, you're always pleased to hear from him.

5. He looked cooler than a polar bear's chode. So if you're gonna plant your flag on a single rapper, it might as well be the flyest dude to ever grace the rap game.

Website: Unkut
Twitter: @Unkut
Favorite Rapper: Kool G Rap

No rapper before Kool G Rap combined legitimate street narratives with an equal mastery of technical accomplishment. At age 14, after a long night of running broads on the corner, G Rap would sharpen his verbal artillery at the after-hours spot Joe Grants with the likes of Silver Fox. His appetite for lyrical destruction soon overtook his nocturnal operations.

Records such as "Road To The Riches" laid the blueprint for all crime rhyme storytelling that followed, and gave rappers like Nas a foundation to build upon. "Men at Work" took brag rap to new heights of metaphorical supremacy. Not to mention that G Rap's cameo's on "Stick To Ya Gunz" and "The Realest" still remain as two of the finest examples of Gun Clap Rap ever laid to a two-inch reel.

The Kool Genius of Rap remains the ultimate personification of gutter wisdom and book smarts, and therefore the greatest rapper of all time.

Website: ItsTheReal
Twitter: @ItsTheReal
Favorite Rapper: Kanye West

My favorite rapper is Kanye West.

I revere Jay Z's entire catalog. I'm in awe of 2 Chainz's live performances. I admire and appreciate Drake's raw emotional recordings. But no rapper gets me defensive like Kanye. That's how you know.

I make excuses for everything he does: His audible deep breaths in between lines? He's extremely passionate. His flawed singing on 808s and Heartbreak? It's a throwback to the days before Pro Tools, where imperfections were kept and celebrated as honest. Calling himself a God? Why shouldn't he speak on that when that's how he's treated by the media? Some of his lines that are perceived as corny attempts at jokes? Consequence's fault. (Even outside of rap, I'm ready to fight for 'Ye, whether it's regarding naming his daughter North, the Taylor Swift situation, his fashion choices, or DONDA.)

Kanye West's music and message have spoken to me since his mixtape days. The fact that he's not only taken the pop culture wheel, but steered an entire musical generation in fascinating new directions, is infinitely inspiring. I'll always be proud to defend the man who's provided the soundtrack to the better part of my life.

Website: CocaineBlunts
Twitter: @Noz
Favorite Rapper: T La Rock

My favorite rapper of all time is T La Rock because he once said that rap music pleases listeners by freezing anxiety and nobody has better explained its effect since. Also he's LL Cool J's dad.

Website: Pitchfork
Twitter: @CBattan
Favorite Rapper: Nicki Minaj

I considered going for a more obscure pull, but that would've been dishonest. Nicki Minaj is bar-none (pun intended) the most skilled rapper we have right now, and that's not even the half of it. Her ability to scale the universe—to sell perfume, hang out with little girls on Ellen, and then drop two of the toughest verses on a Meek Mill mixtape—is thrilling. She's got so much charisma and dazzle that she can make even the dullest of tracks something I want to put on repeat (she's the opposite of Big Sean in that sense). Nicki Minaj constantly makes me want to be better at life.

Website: DallasPenn
Twitter: @Dallas_Penn
Favorite Rapper: Cam'ron

This is the type of question that I can only answer with the caveat that my opinion will be altered in a few months and certainly by next year. Your favorite rapper is so specific to a certain moment in your life and a certain way you are feeling. Just like your taste palate matures and you grow to enjoy sushi, your favorite rapper from your youth isn't the person you want to hear spit rhymes as you move into bill-paying adulthood.

In most cases...

My favorite rapper right now is Cam'ron Giles. After listening to his latest mixtape project Ghetto Heaven Vol.1, I'm transported back to 2003 when DipSet and Diplomatic Immunity was the hottest shit in the streets (other than 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin'). Cam represents NYC street swag to the fullest. All your current favorite rappers owe his flow some credit. From witty punchlines to dark and stormy gunman talk, Cam'ron covers everything in rap I want to hear right now.

Website: FakeShoreDrive
Twitter: @FakeShoreDrive
Favorite Rapper: 2Pac

2Pac is the undisputed G.O.A.T. During his short life, he was the most charismatic, entertaining, polarizing, and enigmatic rapper on the planet. He's had more influence than any other rapper in the history of hip-hop. His presence is still felt and he's still emulated some 17 years after his death. Styles have changed, popular rappers have played musical chairs, and most of his peers have burned out—but Pac's presence still looms. Hell, Kanye proclaimed he was Pac just last week. All rappers hope to attain his level of greatness.

Just about every rapper now follows the Pac blueprint: record, record, record. Wayne capitalized on it. Pac was able to find the balance between making hits and thought-provoking socially conscious music. No one compares.

The weird thing is, at some point the hip-hop media peanut gallery began to turn on Pac, claiming he wasn't a great rapper and was a bit of a false prophet. I still find that odd. But despite what critics may say about Pac and his skills, he's still the people's champ. He's still getting magazine covers in 2013. Enough said.

Website: Noisey
Twitter: @DrewMillard
Favorite Rapper: Cam'ron

There's pretty much no way a music blogger can answer the question of who their favorite anything is without looking like either a tryhard or a dweeb. So I might as well go with the ultimate tryhard dweeb option and announce to the world that my favorite rapper is Cam'ron.

Killa is an underdog. He's a weirdo who doesn't seem to give a shit about anything other than appealing to himself. Whether that means rolling around in a stretch limo in his boxers or taking time off to take care of his mom or making a movie that could be described as "accidental Dogme 95" or, like, making some of the greatest music of all time, that seems to follow a logic only germane to itself.

His self-evident greatness is such a pillar of my worldview that I can't comprehend a person who says they wouldn't like him. There's only so much I can do to communicate why Cam'ron is the best other than, like, forcibly shaking people who say they don't fuck with him.

Website: 2DopeBoyz
Twitter: @MekDot
Favorite Rapper: N/A

I don't really listen to a lot of rap music recreationally these days. Working in the music world, it at times dominates a large amount of my time. When I am "off the clock" I like to listen to a lot of Latin jazz and bossa nova, with my favorite artist of that genre being Stan Getz. My rap playlist today runs the gamut from current to classic, shuffling from everything from Sean Price to OverDoz., from Rich Kidd to Roc Marciano, from Cam'ron to the entire TDE crew.

My favorite rapper, however, isn't even a rapper at all: It's producer/turntable maestro DJ Premier. Growing up in Long Beach I was fascinated by his sample chops, snares, and signature scratches. I credit him for me wanting to pursue a career in the music world and begin spinning as well.

Oh, and Jay Z's "So Ghetto" has forever remained my favorite Jigga song. But that's for another time.

Website: FreeOnSmash
Twitter: @thekidLEGEND
Favorite Rapper: 2Pac

Growing up on the West Coast in the '90s, it was hard to escape the influence that music had, even on someone who came up listening to R&B. Whether it was Death Row having a chokehold on the game or the Bay Area consistently churning out hits, it seemed like everything was rocking back then. At its peak, the artist who had the most impact on all of us had to be 2Pac. His charisma really drew you in. Best believe when he said "fuck Mobb Deep," that's what people really stood behind.

He might have been one of the only artists at the time who could weave in and out of mainstream chart toppers to gangsta ass underground bangers and still have a message in between. From his ode to Afeni Shakur on "Dear Mama" to representing the entire state on "California Love" or his verbal lashing on "Hit 'Em Up," it seemed like there was no subject he wouldn't touch. Political commentary, a positive dedication to the ladies, one for the homies, questioning his life on earth, 2Pac's lyrics still resonate with the culture today, almost 20 years after his death. Of course, during the later years, his aggressiveness consumed him, but he still showed flashes of his former self during that Death Row Records peak.

Memories of hearing "To Live and Die In LA" as a child every hour on Power 106 while visiting my grandma (and having the tape deck recording) always come to mind. Staying up until 2 a.m. to hear the college station world premiere of "God Bless The Dead" before his Greatest Hits was released and hearing him shout out Biggie Smalls was haunting. Stealing All Eyez On Me from random cats' CD sleeves, because you got jacked for the first disc yourself, will always have a place in our hearts. Who knows where the determination to listen to every Makaveli bootleg after his death came from, but it did.

We'll never forget how much time we spent, back in the caveman days of the Internet, researching the theories of when he would return on Lycos pages and Angelfire websites. Even after the seven-year window that all the theories claimed, we still believed he was alive in Cuba chilling somewhere. To this day, there hasn't been another rapper to come out of the West Coast (or any coast for that matter) who's had that same passion, controversy, range of topics and positive message like Pac.

You know Pac is your favorite when you still listen to him consistently to this day. Not a week goes by that Me Against The World doesn't get burn or one of his songs doesn't get played. If you go to the club in California in 2013, you're still guaranteed to hear his music get played and people turn up to it, as if it was 1996.

That's when you know that it's timeless.

Website: Grantland
Twitter: @Rembert
Favorite Rapper: Andre 3000

Growing up in the city we both called home, I looked to Andre 3000 as the example of the guy that made it out. Not simply in the sense of becoming famous, but staying weird and somehow convincing everyone around him that his weird was cool, eventually to the point that it was no longer weird.

I knew if Andre could make a hit like "Rosa Parks" and co-star in a video where he wore gigantic feather pants, no shirt, football pads and a safari hat, there was hope I, too, could flourish in my individuality for all to see, applaud, and perhaps even imitate.

But I also knew that the main reason that he could pull it off was because he was better than everyone else. And technically, I cannot be convinced anyone is better at the skill of rapping. The intersection of all that, mixed in with a ladle serving of hometown bias, is why Three Stacks will always be my favorite.

Website: PigeonsAndPlanes
Twitter: @PigsAndPlans
Favorite Rapper: 2Pac

When people ask me who my favorite rapper is, I always have to clarify—favorite or best? The difference is enormous. When people say "best," they usually mean most technically skilled in the art of rapping. You end up with a lot of Eminem, Biggie, and Nas, and 2Pac usually gets left out of that conversation.

But 2Pac had the kind of passion that very few rappers, or human beings for that matter, possess. When you watch the recent Kanye West interviews, you can feel the energy of someone who cares very deeply about what he does. 2Pac had that same energy, but he didn't just want to make good music or cool stuff for fans to consume—he wanted to change the world. 2Pac died at 25 years old, long before he had the opportunity to fulfill his potential, but that passion bleeds through everything he recorded.

In the Resurrection documentary, there's a quote that I think about every time I listen to 2Pac. He says, "I'm not saying I'm gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world." Aspiring to be the best rapper in the world is impressive, but aspiring to change that world that all these other rappers live in? That's why I love 2Pac.

Website: Complex
Twitter: @JLaPuma
Favorite Rapper: 50 Cent

In 2002, I was working at the Finish Line in Bay Shore, Long Island. My manager/mentor Brione Schneider kept playing a mixtape on loop for the 8-10 hour shifts I was clocking. It was 50 Cent's No Mercy, No Fear. 50 owned the mixtape scene then and his music was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before: His southern accent mixed with flashes of New York brilliance, and a knack for shit-talking on records.

"Wanksta" would play over and over. I'd go home from work telling everyone how big this rapper was going to be. To be fair, most people who were semi in-the-know knew 50 was going to be huge. But I was a legit 50 stan in the 2002-2008 era. My sophomore year of college, I even made a custom satin jacket with "G-UNIT" sewed on it. I remember stunting on Taliek Brown with it in the UConn Dining Hall.

Then Get Rich or Die Tryin' dropped in 2003, and 50 was a household name. I'd say that following 50's rise got me prepared to be a music writer/journalist. I was studying his every move, and prided myself on not missing any material he was putting out. I remember Gideon Yago announcing that 50 signed to Eminem and Dr. Dre's Shady/Aftermath. To this day, I play the "Till I Collapse" freestyle when I'm in a competitive mood.

A year after I got hired at Complex in 2007, I got to interview 50 Cent. It was pretty surreal. I asked him about the MTV Hottest MC list and he told them to suck his dick. The quote got me my first placement on Perez Hilton. I sent the link around to my whole family. Even my grandma looked the other way about the quote and was proud of me.

Over the years, I've interviewed 50 multiple times. But the best moment of my journalistic career was last year when I got to trail 50 as he surprised a Boys & Girls Club Foundation. Watch this video if you haven't seen it. It was a symbol of things coming full circle, as cliché as that sounds, and it made me thankful that I get to do a job that I love.

Website: SubverseCity
Twitter: @FullMetalLotus
Favorite Rapper: N/A

I hate all rappers.