Kanye West

[Kodiak33]

Kanye, to me, isn't the best "rapper"...but he is the best total package in terms of production, song writing, and rapping. Eminem, Nas, and Jay-Z are the best pure rappers IMO.

[Kid Charlemagne]

Eminem, Nas, and Jay-Z are the best pure rappers IMO.

Jay is probably the best of all time, I'll give you that, Nas being in the top five. Em on the other hand, I always found to be very overrated. I go back and listen to the first three albums and while his flow was impeccable, a lot of it is mindless and downright cartoonish at times. To me, Em had his time and place and grabbed it and he was a great artist for that time period. Now, he's just bad. I mean very bad, Relapse and Recovery were clunkers. Relapse was him trying to go back to that almost goofy persona of his first album (as well as parts of Marshall Mathers LP and Eminem Show), but it was just numb. Recovery was even worse, because when he figured out that his old persona didn't work, he did this forced transformation into someone who thinks he's more aware, but isn't. It ammounted to a good chunk of the songs featuring him blatantly yelling and barking out bars instead of just spitting it.

Put a gun to my head and I guess I'd say Jay-Z is the best pure rapper, but I could make a case for a handful of people as well. Kanye is intriguing to me because he's grown with each release. Nevermind that beforehand, he was making beats and produced a good portion of The Blueprint, which could be the best hip hop album of all time. He made perfect beats, then started rapping (keep in mind no labels at that time were willing to give him a shot, them knowing he was just a producer) and has continued to make thought provoking music.

[The Doctor]

Jay is probably the best of all time, I'll give you that, Nas being in the top five. Em on the other hand, I always found to be very overrated. I go back and listen to the first three albums and while his flow was impeccable, a lot of it is mindless and downright cartoonish at times. To me, Em had his time and place and grabbed it and he was a great artist for that time period. Now, he's just bad. I mean very bad, Relapse and Recovery were clunkers. Relapse was him trying to go back to that almost goofy persona of his first album (as well as parts of Marshall Mathers LP and Eminem Show), but it was just numb. Recovery was even worse, because when he figured out that his old persona didn't work, he did this forced transformation into someone who thinks he's more aware, but isn't. It ammounted to a good chunk of the songs featuring him blatantly yelling and barking out bars instead of just spitting it.

Listen to his flow on this song from 2011 and tell me he isn't still amazing:


And just to drive the point home, his flow is the absolute best of all the impressive rappers in Drake's song "Forever" :