Famous black rappers. Who is the best rapper of our time? The best rappers in Russia
20 - Ghostface & Adrian Younge -12 Reasons To Die II-
Great live instrumentals, brilliant storytelling. You can’t find fault with Ghostface at all, but Young has long become predictable and generally the same. But if you haven’t listened to Ghost yet, this is a great reason to finally start.
19 - Action Bronson -Mr.Wonderful-
Most of the tracks are an excellent grotesque between serious rhyming and brilliant fooling around. But the album is weakened by drawn-out skits and lame rock.
18 - Logic -The Incredible True Story-
Logic is an excellent technician, and his album is an impeccable concept. But it’s time to somehow diversify his flow, otherwise all his work so far is one long song with 5000 lines. And the instrumentals are very pale, there’s almost nothing to highlight.
17 - Earl Sweatshirt -I Don"t Like Shit, I Don"t Go Outside-
A short poisonous blow to the head. A depressed dude, reading to creepy, uncomfortable and therefore wonderful music (with such a face, you need to listen to exactly that). And nothing but beats and rhymes, strictly to the point.
16 - Freddie Gibbs -Shadow Of A Doubt-
Bandits and drug dealers, learn how not to look like a sweet boy and not get stuck in the old school. Just a couple more hits, otherwise everything is too smooth.
15 - Lupe Fiasco -Tetsuo & Youth-
A very beautiful album, overloaded with meaning. I think it’s more pleasant to listen to him when you don’t know English. But still, Lupe is great.
14 - Czarface -Every Hero Needs A Villain-
When I need to scream to my favorite boom-bap, I blast this second installment of menacing rap from Inspectah Deck, 7L & Esoteric. It’s difficult to find fault with the lyrics and presentation (which is simply surprising in relation to Inspectah Deck), but one should pay attention to the freshness of the samples and emotional coloring. A third of the tracks “sag” due to excess naphthalene.
13 - Abstract Rude -Keep The Feel-
Let the auto-tuned parrots of our time learn from this guy how to make melodic soft music about life and love. We should be a little more persistent and not be afraid of cleaner, “crunchier” and bassier instrumentals.
12 - ASAP Rocky -A.L.L.A.-
And I like this kind of psychedelia. Rocky certainly knows what “rocks” means. It depends on you, but for me this album is simply full of bangers. Much more serious than the previous album about everything and nothing.
11 - Slum Village -YES!-
Great lyrics with slick, smart rhymes to the music of J Dilla (where do they get that all the time?). Soulful, warm music that truly makes you say “YES!” That's what I needed! If hip-hop had not undergone a malignant degeneration towards stupid auto-tune, it would all be like this now.
10 - Game -The Documentary 2 & 2.5-
Doubt be damned, Game is a great rapper. After such a royal portion of great beats from all the wonderful beatmakers, I just can't help but bow out to him.
09 - Scarface -Deeply Rooted-
To miss an album like this is a crime. Face hasn't done a solo album for 7 years, and this is a brilliant return to form. Signature Houston bass, gloomy but beautiful melodies. The artist himself is great in his field. Lyrics about the dark side of the soul and the ills of current society are an excellent path for an older artist. The singers are too sweet in some places, but the album is very thoroughbred.
08 - Apollo Brown -Grandeur-
Apollo has a unique style, he finds especially chamber, rainy samples and puts them on very calm, quiet drums. The set of guests in the album is wonderful. I am grateful to Brown for the atmosphere, for the closeness of his style, for the immersive effect.
07- Snoop Dogg & Pharrell -BUSH-
Uncle Snoop did not disappoint. In 2015, it was the number one album for chatting with girls. If at least half of the tracks had, in addition to vocals, a rap verse, it would be absolutely priceless. Because the quality of music on “Bush” is simply sky-high.
06 - Ghostface & BadBadNotGood -Sour Soul-
Live music of a high level of performance, not to mention the most pleasant melodies. MC, who seems to have been born for this mixture of hip-hop and light jazz. Stop sleeping, Ghostface is a real Artist. Nothing to complain about at all.
05 - Guilty Simpson -Detroit's Son-
This man has a thick rap baritone that can't be ignored. Excellent “street” image in the texts. But at the same time, he has amazing taste in arthouse rap underground music. You don't listen to Gilty because he's a gangsta? What the hell, his albums are on par with MF Doom, Madlib and J Dilla!
04 - Joey Bada$$ -B4DA$$-
Incredibly pleasant music, a dream for older fans of New York hip-hop. Great, hungry job at the mic. Perhaps if the beats were more varied in melody and emotion, and the MC rapped less about rap and more about life, the success would have been all-encompassing. But Joey still has plenty of time to improve his creativity.
03 - Vince Staples -Summertime "06-
An almost flawless album, predatory, arrogant, poisonous. Perhaps society would be more favorable to Vince (because he deserves it) if he gave less of the usual street stupidity in his lyrics and more of the hellish strain that he is capable of, and did not strive so zealously for purity of style in order to diversify musical component. Otherwise it turned out beautifully, but for the ignorant listener it was too similar.
02 - Dr.Dre -Compton: A Soundtrack-
It's simple. The man showed who is boss in the house. He was not afraid to rely on very young people, so as not to give away pensioner repetitions. He completely changed his reading style, becoming predatory and hasty, which simply knocked the audience out of their seats. And in every track you can see how he enjoyed himself during the recording process. To enjoy what you love when you have absolutely everything - isn’t this the highest gift?
01 - Kendrick Lamar -To Pimp A Butterfly-
This is not an article, but just a comment, so I have to be categorical and tell you: if you are not pumped by TRAV, you simply don’t understand a damn thing about music. It would have been much easier for Kendrick to continue the Swimming Pools theme and conquer the charts, but instead he was in the mood to create a retrospective of all black music, with all the jazz and soul that preceded hip-hop before it turned into a parrot in tight pants. There was a mood - he took and wrote down a whole chronicle about black character and black fate. Moreover, all this jazz and soul is properly pumped up so that you can hear in what year it was recorded. Every melody heals and makes me happy, half of the beats are torn to shreds every time. How Much A Dollar Cost and These Walls are simply the songs of the year. Momma and Mortal Man represent the very essence and heart of hip-hop, every bell is perfect. And about the fact that you have to be a Negro to understand this - well, why on earth if everything is the same for us and for Negroes? We also have a history that we have screwed up, a morality that we have never grown up to, we also follow ourselves, spoil everything around us and kill ourselves. Replace the bunch of blacks on the cover with a bunch of truck drivers or other hard-working men from whom everything is taken away every year, and their White House with our White House - and you’ll get a Russian “Butterfly”.
And where?...
Sean Price: As much as I love the man, Songs In The Key Of Price is a mixtape. Nothing but chopped samples and lines and lines and lines in stacks. 10 years ago, Sean knew how to release songs, varied and pumped up. And this year, just tracks were released - a sample, a beat and verses. Standard set, without chrome and turbocharging.
...Warren G: No one was counting on Warren, but this set of summer tunes for convertibles is just a gift, and with excellent vocals from the long-gone Nate Dogg: a wonderful counterbalance to the Auto-Tune jelly that makes you sick. The release is short and simply didn’t fit into my list.
Jay Rock: In my mind I understand that it’s a great thing, but my soul somehow doesn’t lay down and ask to be turned on again. Maybe I haven’t gotten to it properly yet.
...Skyzoo: He's a nerd, and you can hear it in the music. In addition, after the wonderful song Beautiful Decay, the quality of his work went down, but it should be the other way around.
...Pusha T, Big Sean, Fashawn: Should be in the middle of my list, but they will pay dividends without my support.
Statik Selektah: Too predictable, you can’t do that. There are so many guests, but the music is all one song for 10 years.
…Malik B & Mr.Green: The album just screams that it wants to go back to the 90s. An excellent square music, but this is no longer competitive.
MoSS: An excellent beatmaking album, but the artist forgot that the music should rock.
JMT: I don't like this Vinnie!
Talib Kweli: Yes, he has no albums this year, what are you talking about!
Big Pooh & Nottz: I'm trying, but it sounds pale and the samples are worn out.
Gerald Walker: Great melodic singles, but the album has a lot of filler. And he swears a lot for such light music.
Travis Scott, Ty Dolla, Fetty Wap, etc.: “I don’t eat that, I’m not a goat” (from the film "House for Kuzka").
Top 10 best-selling rappers in the world.
Eminem, Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), better known by his stage names Eminem and Slim Shady, is a Grammy Award winner. A native of St. Joseph, Missouri, he spent his youth in Detroit. His albums have sold over 75 million copies worldwide, making Eminem one of the best-selling musicians of the early 2000s and one of the most popular rappers of all time.
Jay-Z (Jay Z), Jay-Z is the stage name of rapper Shawn Corey Carter, one of the most influential and wealthy figures in modern hip-hop music. As of 2007, eight of his albums have reached the top of the Billboard Top 200.
50 Cent Curtis James Jackson III (born July 6, 1975), better known by his stage name 50 Cent, is an American rapper. Fame came to him with the release of the albums Get Rich or Die Tryin’ and The Massacre. 50 Cent achieved multi-platinum success with both albums, selling over 21 million copies worldwide.
Nelly (Nelly) Nelly Cornell Haynes (born November 2, 1976), better known as Nelly, is an American rapper and actor. He began his career with the rap group St.lunatics in 1996 and signed a contract with Universal Records in 2000. He has released five successful solo studio albums and several mega-singles.
Outkast, OutKast is a duo of American rappers Andre Benjamin (under the pseudonyms Dr? and Andr? 3000) and Antwan Patton (under the pseudonym Big Boi), who represent the Atlanta school of hip-hop, mixed with G-funk and classic southern soul. Winners of six Grammy Awards, Outkast pivoted the Southern hip-hop movement from aggressive, angry shouting to melodic arrangements, carefully crafted lyrics and an overall optimistic and humorous attitude.
Snoop Dogg (Snoop Dogg) Snoop Dogg (real name Calvin Broadus) is an American rapper, producer and actor. Snoop is best known as an MC in the West Coast hip-hop scene and one of Dr.'s most talented protégés. Dre.
Earl Simmons (known by his stage name DMX) is a hip-hop artist born on December 18, 1970 in Baltimore, Maryland. His father abandoned the family when Earl was young, and he was raised in a boarding school in Yonkers, New York. He spent most of his youth in prison. DMX began his career in Yonkers, where he MCed alongside his friends Lox and DJ Clue. His nickname was taken from the name of the drum machine "Oberheim DMX", which he later deciphered as "Dark Man X".
Notorious B.I.G., The Notorious B.I.G. - (May 21, 1972, Brooklyn, New York - March 9, 1997, Los Angeles, California) the most famous pseudonym of American rapper Christopher George Latore Wallace. He also performed under the pseudonyms Biggie Smalls and Frank White.
Kanye West, Kanye Omari West is an American music producer and rapper and multiple Grammy Award winner. He released his debut album, The College Dropout, in 2004, his second album, Late Registration, in 2005, his third album, Graduation, in 2007, and his fourth, 808s & Heartbreak, in 2008.
Ludacris (Ludacris), Ludacris began his music career as a DJ at a radio station in Atlanta under the name Chris Lova Lova. Thanks to his work on the radio, the famous hip-hop producer Timbaland found out about him and offered to collaborate. The first recording featuring Ludacris was the track "Phat Rabbit" from Timbaland's 1998 album Tim's Bio: Life from da Bassment. Soon after, Ludacris released his first album, Incognegro.
We will show you not only an interesting selection of photographs from the “Then” and “Now” series, you will also find stories of the difficult childhood of these “black” rappers. Read and be amazed! Well, don’t forget to rate the funny pictures 😀 .
Just look at these cute kids from school photo albums. Unfortunately, many of the images in our selection hide stories of difficult childhoods.
Kanye West, 39 years old
When Kanye was three years old, he went through his parents' divorce. His mother took him with her to Chicago. As a boy, he loved to play video games and basketball, and went to public school like all children. Over the years, he became interested in music: he began to compose melodies on a synthesizer and write poetry. Dreaming of a career as a musician, he nevertheless decided to get a profession that was more down-to-earth and reliable.
However, after a year of training, he set off to conquer New York. To get money for a ticket and housing, he had to pawn his gold chain. This is the pursuit of a dream, respect!
50 CENT, 41 years old
Curtis Jackson was born in the “black” neighborhood of one of the suburbs of New York. His mother gave birth to him when she was only 15! She was involved in shady things: she sold crack, led a vagabond lifestyle. She died when her son turned 8, becoming a victim of drug gangs, if rumors are to be believed. As a result, the grandmother took up raising the future rapper. And since she had to look after 8 more children, the boy grew up practically on the street and left to his own devices. You won't be jealous!
Jay Z, 47 years old
Shawn Carter was the 4th child in his family. When the boy turned 11, his father left the family. Jay Z had to start earning money himself quite early. The grocery store where he worked paid little, which is why the guy started selling crack. To protect himself, the young drug dealer purchased a pistol. By the way, once he even shot his older brother in the shoulder because he dared to steal his ring!
Snoop Dogg, 45 years old
In his youth, Snoop Dogg (real name Cordozar Kelvin Broadus Jr.) sang in the church choir and played the piano. But a little later, having already become a teenager, Snoop chose a different path for himself: he became a member of a real gang and started selling drugs. Several times the singer went to prison on charges of possession of prohibited substances and weapons.
Wiz Khalifa, 29 years old
Due to the nature of his parents’ work (and rapper Wiz Khalifa is the son of military personnel), in his youth Cameron Jibril Thomaz managed to live in Germany, England and Japan. At 15, the then aspiring performer finally settled in the USA. It was then that he chose the pseudonym Wiz Khalifa, which is not as simple as it seems. This is not some set of letters, but a derivative of the words: from English wisdom - “wisdom” and from Arabic “califa” - “successor”.
Drake, 30 years old
Aubrey Drake Graham was born in Canada, the son of a teacher and a drummer. He was raised mainly by his mother, a Canadian Jew from a family of emigrants from Russia. At 15, Drake decides to drop out of school to earn extra money while filming Degrassi: The Next Generation. According to the rapper, he tried his best to help his mother financially, but often his fee from filming was lower than even the small salary of a teacher: “We were very poor, almost broke.”
Lil Wayne, 34 years old
The mother gave birth to Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. when she was only 19. After 2 years, the child's father left his family. Raising the boy falls on the shoulders of his stepfather. I must say, Wayne was lucky, he accepted him as his own son. But unfortunately, the man was killed before his stepson became a successful musician.
Taiga, 27 years old
Michael Nguyen Stevenson (ex-boyfriend of Kylie Jenner) grew up in California. Let's note an interesting fact: the rapper's cousin is Travie McCoy from Gym Class Heroes. If you know, this is the same guy who once dated Katy Perry.
Kendrick Lamar, 29 years old
At school, Lamar got straight A's. However, he preferred hip-hop to science! He was so strongly influenced by his participation in the filming of the Tupac and Dr. video. Dre California Love. Kendrick starred there when he was only 8. The future rapper began reading and recording at the age of 16.
Strong MCs usually become noticeable immediately - no matter what the name of the subgenre in which they work is called. Last week we detailed who is called Doom's heir. And in this list we have collected those rappers whom we follow, and we advise you, if not to do the same, then at least to know about their existence. Some of them have been on stage for several years now, but still have not achieved widespread fame, while others are just about to ascend to this very stage. We did not mean any rating, but simply arranged the musicians in a chaotic order.
Micah Jenkins
The rapper with a brutal voice in his tracks most often touches on issues of racial discrimination and the evolution of music - a lot of jazz beats and interpreted classics. He released his first tracks back in 2012, but people really started talking about the young talent after the release of the mixtape “The Water(s)” this year, and the material was also appreciated among the luminaries of the genre, such as Method Man, Timbaland, Redman, B-Real.
Interestingly, 23-year-old Jenkins is from Chicago, the birthplace of drill led by Chief Keef and where the style is now a craze. There are some echoes in Mika’s works, but in terms of meaning he is more likely to relate to his older colleagues from the same city - Common, Chali 2na and others. This contrast is perfectly demonstrated, for example, in the “Martyrs” video.
“In the track I compare us to martyrs who are ready to die for an idea. At the beginning we deliberately inserted an apartment scene - it's a parody of a typical rap video from Chicago today. These guys just glorify crime and murder.”
Bishop Nehru
At the moment, everyone knows him as “that same 17-year-old prodigy who released a joint album with MF Doom.” As legend has it, the teenager met Doom in London, after which they began exchanging beats, tracks and ideas, from which NehruvianDOOM grew - of course, not the album of the year, but certainly worthy material.
It is noteworthy that Nehru began writing music at the age of 13, and one of the first places where he posted his first tracks was the Odd Future website forum. Bishop celebrates the golden era of hip-hop and the sound of the 1990s, which he does well and in which he may soon give Joey Badass good competition. Well, not everyone is signed by the legendary Nas himself to his label and called “the future of music.”
Bishop took his pseudonym from the hero of the film “Juice”, played by Tupac. “I was inspired by this character,” says the young rapper. “His main idea is that respect cannot be earned just like that, you need to work at it.” And so far Nehru himself is doing an excellent job.
Isaiah Rashad
A man who sounds equally good with a fairly classic near-Dill sound and with a southern bass sound. 23-year-old Rashad used to want to become a preacher - as he himself says, he was admired by their ability to capture the attention of the crowd and lead them into ecstasy. But what awaited him next was an almost classic story: his brother played him an OutKast album, and Rashad quickly realized what was really sending the crowd into ecstasy.
Since then, the influence of the group and the sound of that time have appeared very often in his music. It's like what Southern hip-hop was like before trap came along. The rapper's talent did not go unnoticed; one of the most high-profile labels of recent years, T.D.E. signed him to his team, where Kendrick Lamar, the wonderful singer SZA and the entire Black Hippy team had already settled down very, very successfully. Rashad himself behaves quite modestly with the media and does not pursue hype so intensely, which, of course, sets him apart from the crowd of other rappers.
Not so long ago, almost the entire Internet community believed that this was the alter ego of Nas, who decided to release previously unexposed tracks. It turned out that he was a Russian (!) guy from Brooklyn. There is little information about him, we only know that he previously recorded under the name Invisible Droog. In his rapping style and voice timbre, he really looks a lot like a slightly tipsy Nas, but similar in a good way. Who he is, where he comes from and what awaits him - we still have to figure it out, but the EP, which has so stirred up the Internet, is definitely worth it.
Denzel Curry
Probably the fastest growing rapper on the list. In 2013, Denzel released a rather strong mixtape “Nostalgic 64”, which critics and hip-hop sites instantly appreciated and elevated to the rank of one of the best mixtapes of the year.
Indeed, the 19-year-old rapper from Miami knows how to string words together tightly. The humorous coloring of the tracks intersects with the problems of the younger generation, and the refrain of one of his main hits, sounding like “Your momma ain't shit, your daddy ain't shit, and then you realize that life is a bitch,” still makes you involuntarily smile.
Previously, Denzel was a member of the Raider Klan, whose leader SpaceGhostPurrp is so irreconcilably at war with ASAP Rocky, but later founded his own party C9, and although the musical influence of his former friends can be heard in a certain echo in the work of the young MC, as he himself admits, such independence undoubtedly benefited him .
The 21-year-old rapper from New Jersey makes quite dark and even noir music. “Where I come from, you have little chance of rising. I use mine, talk about what I know, saw and can do.” This content of the tracks fits perfectly both with his personal image and with the music that producers write for him (most often Thelonious Martin).
I must say, this is one of Retch’s strengths - he perfectly understands what beats his voice sounds like: it seems like he even promises tracks from Alchemist. Retch's big fan is the outrageous giant Action Bronson, who even invited him to participate in the recording of several tracks of his next mixtape.
Little Simz
I would like to end the list on a good note, once again making sure that female rap exists. We are talking about a 20-year-old Englishwoman who, with confident steps, is winning more and more audiences around the world. She's already toured with Schoolboy Q, performed on Boiler Room and BBC Radio 1, is a great freestyler and, most importantly, can sound completely organic to any beat, no matter whether it's grime, trip-hop or trap.
Her latest project, the mixtape “E.D.G.E.”, instantly sold out in the UK and even received positive reviews from monsters like Dizzee Rascal and Joey Badass. But for ambitious Simz, this is just the first step. “I want to become a mega icon. So that people look at me and wonder how she even climbed so high at that age, I will make every effort for this,” says the young Englishwoman herself. They say that the American public rarely perceives rappers from the UK, but Little Simz can easily be imagined as an artist of the same T.D.E. or a similar strong independent American label.
3. Eminem
Marshall Bruce Mathers III, better known by his stage name Eminem and his alter ego Slim Shady, is a rapper, music producer, composer and actor. In addition to his solo career, Marshall is also a member of the group D12 and the hip-hop duo Bad Meets Evil.
Eminem is one of the best-selling music artists in the world, as well as the best-selling artist of the 2000s. He has been named one of the greatest musicians of all time by many magazines, including Rolling Stone, which ranked Eminem number 83 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists. The same magazine proclaimed him the King of Hip-Hop.
2. Jay Z
Shawn Corey Carter, better known as Jay-Z, is an American rapper with a net worth of over $500 million as of 2012. 13 of his albums have reached the top of the Billboard 200. This is a record for any solo artist and the second most in history after The Beatles, who had 19 albums that reached number one in the United States. Multiple Grammy Award winner.
Back in 1999, Jay-Z rapped in a song in Mariah Carey's "Heartbreaker" video, which topped the Billboard Hot 100. In 2003, Jay-Z returned to the top of the US pop charts with the track "Crazy in Love", recorded with him friend and now wife of Beyoncé. He is the founder and co-owner of Roc-A-Fella Records, as well as the former CEO of Def Jam Recordings, co-owner of the 40/40 Club, creator of the Rocawear clothing line and co-owner of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets.
1. Notorious B.I.G.
Christopher George Lator Wallace (May 21, 1972, Brooklyn, New York - March 9, 1997, Los Angeles, California) was an American rapper who performed under the aliases Biggie Smalls, Frank White and, most famously, The Notorious B.I.G. He was the leader of East Coast hip-hop.
On September 13, 1994, Biggie's debut album, Ready To Die, was released and was a stunning success. The first single, "One More Chance", went platinum within weeks, and by the end of the year the album was certified triple platinum. At last count, the album sold four million copies.
The rapper's second album, Life After Death, released in 1997, won several awards, including Billboard's R'n'B Album of the Year and two ASCAP Awards. The album was released posthumously, a few weeks after Biggie's tragic death. Life After Death debuted at number one in its first weeks of release, breaking all records, and remained on the charts for many months with singles such as "Mo Money, Mo Problems" and "Sky's The Limit".
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