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 E-A-Ski dropped his top five emcees, Houston's Paul Wall unloads his fave five.]
Hot Boys. 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.
OutKast. 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.
Z-Ro. 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.
UGK. 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.
Mob Figaz. 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.
