Real talk is Kanye West the best rapper of all time?

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Kanye's talent lies in his abilities as a producer, i.e. making catchy music. As a rapper he is just not that good.
Now, Kanye producing a CYNE album? That would probably be out of this world amazing on all fronts.
 
He's top 300 rapper for sure OP. Top 10 producer.

You know when you're on a track with Krs-One Rakim, and Nas having your verse cut out of the track makes it a... Classic.
 
OverBlood 3 said:
Trash post, go listen to Me Against The World. It's a masterpiece.
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FTFY

Also nah. Kanye lyrical is just okay, although he is influential to the current group of artists coming out and on hip hop as a whole, but dude has way to many ghostwriters and people helping with his production that it sorta takes him out a lot of discussion. I love LR and TCD, but find yeezus, TLOP, and MBDTF to be madly overrated.

For me he isn't even the best hip hop artist on g.o.o.d music( Pusha T and Mos take those high points) yet alone the whole of the hip hop genre, past and present.
 
Top 10 Producer? Lock!
Top 50 Rapper? Maybe?

I can admit his star is bright and his influence is strong but he's Krillin in the Cell Games in terms of mic skills.
 
Whether you like it most is personal. Now admittedly I've been out of rap for quite some time, so I can't honestly say how Yeezy measures up, but how can he be more influential than Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Wu-Tang, Tupac, heck Snoop Dogg. What did he do to change rap? Post on Instagram?
 
joe2187 said:
gfk-unintrested-1.gif~original
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Certainly would take Supreme Clientele over any Kanye album.
 
Lyrics and writing are there but he lacks the flow to be a "good rapper"

He definitely has created some of the catchiest / most clever lines tho
 
spekkeh said:
Whether you like it most is personal. Now admittedly I've been out of rap for quite some time, so I can't honestly say how Yeezy measures up, but how can he be more influential than Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Wu-Tang, Tupac, heck Snoop Dogg. What did he do to change rap? Post on Instagram?
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Maybe the fact that he influenced clothing to such a degree that athletes went from wearing suits and ties to wearing outrageous colors and whatnot. Maybe the fact that since 808s people have been trying to do what Kanye did. Without Kanye there is no Drake, no Weeknd, no Childish Gambino, no J. Cole, none of these singing/rappin dudes exist.

I'd say he is just the tiniest bit influential
 
Between Childish Gambino, MF DOOM and Aesop Rock, I wouldn't know what to choose, but Kanye? Maybe College Dropout Kanye, yeah, but Life of Pablo.... Nah.
 
Kanye as an artist is the best thing that had ever came from hip hop.

As a rapper? He's not a rapper. He doesn't write his lyrics.
 
Big Ye fan here

He's not a great rapper. He's typically average with occasional good. Ye's strength is his production, his overall vision for an album, and, most of the time, his lyrics (just not necessarily the delivery of them). He's good at picking an idea for an album and really developing it throughout the album (MBDTF or TLOP). Ye's also really good at bringing an album together, his transitions are godly. Will Toledo, the front man for Car Seat Headrest, wrote a really good essay about TLOP in which he touches on that, and I highly recommend reading it. So yeah, he's not a great rapper, but he's definitely a great artist.
 
He's one of the best if not the. Might be the only rapper not from the last 10 years who hasn't fallen off. Even his newest album, despite not being his best work, is absolutely terrific.
 
Lkr said:
Gaf is too old. Kanye is the voice of a generation. The Mozart of our time.
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I'll give him this. He is the Greatest Average Rapper of All Time. The very top of whatever tier of rappers he's included with. This is not to say he has not achieved great works and put out classic albums in that status. College is a classic as well as MBDTF. Those are not classics because of his mic skills. Beats and Features went a long way to those albums being that dope.


The Real Question is: Who's a better producer Kanye West or Just Blaze?
 
theignoramus said:
I mean really, we wanna compare Kanye to thoroughbred spitters like Ghostface, Big, Ice Cube, Rakim, Kendrick, Beans, Jay, Lupe, Game, Em, Nas? Its laughable. He has to be evaluated as an artist, cause as a rapper, he looks funny in the light. Pusha rapped circles around him when they freestyled on Funk Flex.
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big pun should be on that list.
 
His production is great, his lyrics have risen from bad (since We Are the Champions) to competent (Watch the Throne).

Plenty of better rappers/MCs out there, unless you're strictly mainstream.
 
Supast4r said:
In terms of sales, accolades, influence, fame, etc I can't think of anyone who comes close to Kanye for how long he has been able to sustain the success that he has had. Sure he suffers from mental illness now and is a completely unstable human being, but many of his hits are timeless to many like me.
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Best rapper, and then you go and make a case for best businessman. Best rapper? No. Incredible samples, incredible first few albums, but even though I love College dropout he's a mediocre rapper with average writing ability. Rakim and Mos Def, for example, use words Kanye can't even spell. Although you don't have to go very deep into the dictionary to achieve that.
 
Number one?

On my list, sure. His work is amazing, can't think of a single musician who has had a career that I've been on board with for every album for this long.
 
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