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FEATURED LL Cool J says he’s the “most important rapper that ever existed”, do you agree❓

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ZMaKEa said:
Whodini made RnB love records...

The foundations of Hip Hop was initially in dance music and RnB. Up until Run DMC, Beastie Boys and them crushed the buildings, most Hip Hop sounded like I Need Love.

Kanye West didn't do the shit the Native Tongue did.

Kanye West openly said, "I don't care about your dusty Hip Hop, I am going to make legit Pop music and there's nothing you gonna do or say to stop me."

Hip Hop been trying to go that way since the 90s and the street rappers would jump in and say nah, that shit is wack. Will Smith, MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice were successful but they weren't accepted in Hip Hop.

The street rappers tried to stop Kanye West too and he broke through and he didn't make shit that sounded like anything in Hip Hop and nobody could tell him shit.

How many actual Hip Hop albums are in Kanye's discography? How many albums that actually sound like a Hip Hop album similar to anything made in the late 80s, 90s and the 2000s?

It's probably only College Dropout, Late Registration and My Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Kanye West in all honestly, tricked everybody by making College Dropout so he can run off and make his version of Pop music.

The experimentations of Native Tongue and them were grounded in Funk, RnB and Soul. Kanye West's music is grounded in Pop. It's shit like Bjork,, Marylin Manson and Nine Inch Nails. Kanye West is closer that alternative shit in the 90s than to any Hip Hop artist before him.
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Good point with Whodini, but they didn’t make the "girl record" a staple in hip hop like LL did. They just did their own thing which always welcome in hip hop as long as you were dope. You don't hear Nelly and them say they were inspired by Whodini. Those other acts that got rejected was due to the rise of gangsta rap and in Hammer/Will's case, industry niggas hating behind the scenes.

As far as Kanye goes, he was damn near adopted by Native Tongues... I think he might even be an honorary member. There's a reason we call it the "old Kanye"... most of our core memories of Kanye go back to those first 3 albums and his early-mid 2000s production, no matter how much he tries to abandon it. As far as his current sound, I give more credit to Kid Cudi for that. He was the driving force behind the creative direction of 808s and was sitting on records like that for years. Him and Big Sean held Kanye down creatively and kept him relevant for the better part of that era. Kanye is SUPER important, but there's too many hands in the pot for me to give him that over LL.
 
Thought I'd catch flack coming in here but my view has already been stated.

It's either Snoop or Will. No brainer imo.
 
As far as being a viable solo star goes, LL definitely is the most important rapper. Before him some dudes had some success but he was the one who broke through to white kids radios on a grand scale as a solo MC.
 
Lab Baby said:
Good point with Whodini, but they didn’t make the "girl record" a staple in hip hop like LL did. They just did their own thing which always welcome in hip hop as long as you were dope. You don't hear Nelly and them say they were inspired by Whodini. Those other acts that got rejected was due to the rise of gangsta rap and in Hammer/Will's case, industry niggas hating behind the scenes.

As far as Kanye goes, he was damn near adopted by Native Tongues... I think he might even be an honorary member. There's a reason we call it the "old Kanye"... most of our core memories of Kanye go back to those first 3 albums and his early-mid 2000s production, no matter how much he tries to abandon it. As far as his current sound, I give more credit to Kid Cudi for that. He was the driving force behind the creative direction of 808s and was sitting on records like that for years. Him and Big Sean held Kanye down creatively and kept him relevant for the better part of that era. Kanye is SUPER important, but there's too many hands in the pot for me to give him that over LL.
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I think LL Cool J is important in providing the blueprint of being a successful Hip Hop superstar.

I don't give him credit for anything sonically related but business model wise. Hip Hop came from dance, funk and R&B, so most Hip Hop acts were crews.

Run DMC and Whodini laid the groundwork sonically of what popular mainstream Hip Hop of the 80s should sound like. You combine both acts, you got street sound and the "girl record".

With the birth of the samplers and drum machines, they no longer needed bands and LL was the experiment of what a popular solo rapper should be.

I think of Kanye as a movie director. He started out indie, making small time Hip Hop Soul because that's all he had at his disposal and through making Hip Hop Soul, he narrowed down his production process. But he always wanted to make big expansive blockbusters. You couldn't do that in Hip Hop at the time. Shiny Suit rap was dead, there was only street, hardcore rap and conscious rap. Kanye picked being a conscious adjacent rap artist because that's the only way he could get in.

We also have to remember that the Black American Hip Hop listener was changing. It went from a more urban street audience to a college educated surbrban lower middle class audience and Kanye was a part of that. He was the avatar for that.

Kanye was a Black artist that chose Hip Hop has his medium because of was the most popular accessible artform to him. He knows he can't rap. He been told that his whole life. He doesn't have the musicianship to single handedly create his expansive works. What he can do is direct his vision of what his version of Hip Hop should sound like and come to find out, it isn't very Hip Hop sounding at all.

It is a call back to the foundations of dance music like Electro and Detroit Techno. It's Gospel. It's Pop.

But there's no Jazz, Soul or Funk. Even his version of Trap doesn't have bounce.
 
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Lab Baby said:
Irrelevant, or relevant?
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LL is irrelevant in rap

He has been mainstream for the past 20ys because he stays on television


Edit: just remembered he dropped an album this year.... i didnt like it. Forgot all about it til jus now
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He needs to put it in a rap is all im sayin.

I been tryn think of who can call themselves "most important rapper" in a top 5 but like what are talkin about?

Most decorated?
Most sales?
Most respected?
Most famous?

I give him top 10 sure.
Top 5 has a good argument.
 
GOAT said:
He needs to put it in a rap is all im sayin.

I been tryn think of who can call themselves "most important rapper" in a top 5 but like what are talkin about?

Most decorated?
Most sales?
Most respected?
Most famous?

I give him top 10 sure.
Top 5 has a good argument.
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If LL didn't put it in a rap on that album he dropped in 2000, you don't have a screen name. As far as being irrelevant, by the time that album dropped he was the only one in his class that was still relevant. He set the tone for the cats entering their 2nd decade today.
 
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