Twenty-three years ago, an unground battle rapper by the name of Eminem dropped his first studio album (The Slim Shady LP) with Dr. Dre's imprint at Interscope Records. The project would go on to win the Detriot-based emcee a Grammy Award for best rap album in route to selling over four million copies domestically. The Slim Shady LP helped launch his career as a mainstream artist and also made him the first White rapper ever to be universally accepted by the hip-hop community as a real lyricist with street credibility to match.
Eminem essentially broke the color barrier in rap music, and it's largely because of him that hip hop fans have been introduced to a wide variety of White artists in the genre, since then, such as Yelawolf, Machine Gun Kelly, Mac Miller, G-Eazy, Jack Harlow and more. He's also influenced a litany of Black rappers such as Earl Sweatshirt, Hopsin, and Kendrick Lamar. Today, Eminem is the highest-selling rapper of all time, but when it comes to his groundbreaking legacy, many hip-hop pundits such as Lord Jamar and Charlamagne tha God have neglected to honor him as an all-time great.
The latter recently ran down a short list of the most influential rappers to have ever lived during a segment of his Brilliant Idiots podcast. Notably missing from the list was Dr. Dre's rap protege and the man whom many people believe is the most responsible for globalizing Drill music from Chicago, Chief Keef.
"I'm not gon' say the number order, but it's four: Kanye, Jay, Pac, Wayne...[The] four most influential rappers of all time," Charlamagne stated.
In response, one of his contributors insisted that Chief Keef belonged on the list.
"You know why I don't put Chief Keef in there? Because Chief Keef didn't influence like, the world," he said of the Drill pioneer. "He influenced a sound of a region. He didn't influence the world. Those four people I named literally influenced people all over the world."
Interestingly enough, Charlamagne tha God also neglected to bring up Biggie, who is often referred to as the greatest rapper of all time, having only released one studio album while he was alive. He also didn't list Rakim, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, or Tyler the Creator, whose collective (Odd Future) has had a long-lasting impact on urban culture, both musically and from a fashion standpoint.
The video clip has gone viral, and it has sparked debates about which rap artists truly belong on the "most influential" list and where they should actually rank. Scroll up to watch.
Source: Hot New Hip Hop
