S. Samuel
[Each week, SOHH asks two entertainment personalities to name their Top 5 rappers of all-time. To make things tricky, we've created a "Hall of Fame" of emcees (see right) who are universally respected and therefore may not be mentioned. After Kid Ink spilled out his top five picks, rap legend Too $hort unloads his fave five.]
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Melle Mel. He changed the whole sh*t. That one song, “The Message,” changed everything. Everything before that was all about parties. After that, we started talking about our communities and we started talking about injustices. He really painted that picture of when Chuck D said hip-hop is the CNN of the streets. It starts there with “The Message.” That was the first time I pictured the real New York. -
Dr. Dre. I definitely have to put Dr. Dre in there not just because of his bar-for-bar raps, but just because of his relevance in hip-hop. When I was coming up, even I was buying Dr. Dre albums and that was in the 80’s and he’s still doing it.
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Geto Boys. Scarface and Geto Boys is the same thing to me. The songs they put out were so good.
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Ice-T. I would have to say Ice-T just because he ushered in the whole West Coast and what it became. There was a lot of West Coast artists before Ice-T but after he came, it was a whole new West Coast.
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Schoolly D. I have to name my favorite rapper and that’s Schoolly D. He was there from the very beginning of hip-hop and had one of the best images. He also had one of the best flows too. He wasn’t on some corny a** cartoon sh*t. He was on some real sh*t. Schoolly D was a really big influence on me coming up.
Melle Mel. He changed the whole sh*t. That one song, “The Message,” changed everything. Everything before that was all about parties. After that, we started talking about our communities and we started talking about injustices. He really painted that picture of when Chuck D said hip-hop is the CNN of the streets. It starts there with “The Message.” That was the first time I pictured the real New York.
Dr. Dre. I definitely have to put Dr. Dre in there not just because of his bar-for-bar raps, but just because of his relevance in hip-hop. When I was coming up, even I was buying Dr. Dre albums and that was in the 80’s and he’s still doing it.
Geto Boys. Scarface and Geto Boys is the same thing to me. The songs they put out were so good.
Ice-T. I would have to say Ice-T just because he ushered in the whole West Coast and what it became. There was a lot of West Coast artists before Ice-T but after he came, it was a whole new West Coast.
Schoolly D. I have to name my favorite rapper and that’s Schoolly D. He was there from the very beginning of hip-hop and had one of the best images. He also had one of the best flows too. He wasn’t on some corny a** cartoon sh*t. He was on some real sh*t. Schoolly D was a really big influence on me coming up.
