S. Samuel
Round One: The battle goes down low for the low down as Atlanta's Bubba Sparxxx (Bio/Twitter) takes on Houston's own Paul Wall (Bio/Twitter). Whose list got the props? You decide!
| BUBBA SPARXXX’S PICKS | | | PAUL WALL’S PICKS |
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I’m going to name Andre 3000 in my list. He’s got to go number one. He’s just my favorite emce of all time. Period. I would figure he’d be on the Hall of Fame list of rappers you can’t name. He’s pretty much in everybody’s Top 5. |
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My first pick is the Hot Boys. This is just a group of rappers I really grew up listening to. They really changed the game with their baller rap. They were ballin’ and stunting in their music. That was something that was real big in Texas with all the stunting and the ballin’. It was big and a part of our culture. When they came talking about their rims and how big their rims were, the bling bling, that’s something everybody in Texas loved. |
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Number two would have to go to Trick Daddy. I’m from the South. Trick Daddy is another cat that’s just original. When it comes to me, it’s all about originality. What you’re going to notice is the people I’m naming here all [contain] originality. These are people who are original and, at least when they came out, there had never been people that sounded like them. Now there may have been people afterward sound like them, but prior there wasn’t. |
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Now I have to go with OutKast. I loved growing up listening to OutKast. I remember growing up and just really being influenced by what Big Boi and Andre 3000 were saying in their music and bringing something different to hip-hop, coming from Atlanta. |
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Number three would be Ice Cube. When I first started listening to hip-hop, late 80’s, early 90’s, when I was a kid, there really wasn’t a lot of that music. There was the Geto Boys that came out of the South and Uncle Luke did his thing with the booty shake music out of Miami. But as far as emcees, there wasn’t really any artists out of the South yet. Not a whole lot anyway. So N.W.A., Ice Cube, that was my sh*t. He had some classic albums. He definitely marks a generation. |
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Z-Ro is in my Top 5 list. Like I’ve said, Z-Ro’s talented. He kind of sticks to himself. He goes to his own beat. He don’t really f*ck with a lot of other people. Sometimes all he f*cks with is fam. Z-Ro is one of my favorite artists to ever touch the mic. |
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Number four is UGK (Pimp C & Bun B). Rest in peace to Pimp C. He’s another one of a kind rapper that broke the mold. He was such a tremendous spirit and I loved his personality. Vocally and originality, he’s one of the best ever to me. |
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UGK without a doubt. Texas rappers, Bun B and Pimp C. I grew up on them. They’re legends in my eyes and to a lot of us in Houston. |
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My last one’s got to be Cee-Lo from Goodie Mob. That’s Dungeon Family right there. Cee Lo is actually the most slept on artist. It’s a tie between him and Rich Boy. Cee Lo starting to get his props with the singing and pop music sound. But as far as the emcee skills and spitting, he never got his props. |
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And I’m gonna end my list with Mob Figaz. They were based out in the Bay. I got turned on to them by my boys. I just fell in love with their style of rap. They had reality type of rap and the Bay area specifically reminds me a lot about Texas. The car culture is really big and you could hear that in the music. Culturally, it’s that stunting and ballin’ that I love. |
