This was a really easy question until I thought about it. I was an English major in undergrad, but I'll be honest and say I'm not any good at evaluating technical aspects of poems/raps. I've always considered myself more of a "lyrical" than "technical" guy, but they can be hard to separate at times.
Like, wordplay is a quality of meaning rather than sound but in a way it's also a technical skill. You could make a song consisting entirely of puns with nothing tying it all together in terms of meaning and in that sense it'd be kind of a technical ability. And then with being "lyrical" is a song lyrical if it can tell a good story or evoke an emotional response even if it lacks vocabulary/metaphors (something like They Reminisce Over You)? But good vocab doesn't necessarily make something lyrical - if you look at it from a technical point of view having more words to draw from makes it easier to rhyme.
Where does flow fit?
I'm trying to think of songs that skew heavily one way or the other
Technical, but not necessarily lyrical:
Madvillainy - Meat Grinder
Lyrical, not necessarily technical:
Earl Sweatshirt - Sunday (ft. Frank Ocean) (Parts of it are kinda technical but overall, especially Frank's part, I would say skew the other way)
Death Grips - Beware (if you count it)
They're both kind of intertwined. Both are important, but I think technical ability is more essential to hip hop. It took me about 2 seconds to think of a technical song and like an hour to find a sufficiently non-technical, very lyrical song. That said, skewing too technical you lose all meaning. You skew too far away from technical, though, and people start to question whether you're making hip hop (ie Death Grips).
My favorite songs have a healthy dose of both, but probably lean lyrically if a compromise has to be made:
Blu - Amnesia
Kendrick Lamar - Sing About Me
