Malice: “Man, Go Ahead & Put Big L In The Hall of Fame”

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. This week, we start with The Clipse's Malice to grind out his most respected lyricists.

• I say Large Professor because I think a lot of the lyric-driven emcees owe a lot to Large Professor. I think it’s just the fact that his style was so dope and he was so lyrical [early in his career]. Everything is a derivative from cats like Large Professor. That’s why I pay homage to Large Professor. He definitely stayed on my brain.

• Masta Ace. I don’t even know what to say about him except how creative he was lyrically. He’s another one of those dudes that I looked up to and it seemed like he always had a lot of fun [on the mic]. He’s one of those guys that really enjoyed what he was doing. He seemed to do it with ease. I would definitely have to put Masta Ace in there.

• Man, go ahead and put Big L in the Hall of Fame. Go ahead and put that man in there right now. I identify with Big L simply because it seemed like a lot of people started giving him his credit late. I could be wrong but it seems like people really started giving him his credit after he had passed. I guess when you pass, then the light shines on you and you really start looking at what a person has done. I’m going to ride with Big L.

• I have to name Gang Starr. What people didn’t know is Guru was a preacher and when I say that, if you listen, he was really dropping that Biblical knowledge on you. I don’t know if people were picking up on it and I don’t know if I was even picking up on it [when I first listened to him]. He always stayed on something Biblical and you can’t ever go wrong with that with me. He was trying to uplift and do something positive in a very negative arena. I’m not saying everything has to be all positive, but he was definitely taking an attempt at reaching somebody.

• Let’s go with The Clipse. We did something that just ain’t being done in VA. We came with out own wrath and kind of shook up a few other cats who had been rhyming for a minute. We came from the South and showed we could really spit. We’re brothers and both be spitting. That’s a deadly combo.