Ok, so you don't like Biggie. You don't like Kanye either, but you still admit that his influence on hip-hop has been undeniable. Even if you don't like Notorious BIG, I think it's pretty silly to act as though he isn't one of the most influential rappers of all time.

To not like him, that's fine. I don't like Dr. Dre, but is he influential? Hell yeah.

You have to give Big props. He's name dropped by every generation of rappers, alongside Pac.

Anyway, I think ATCQ should be an #1, not because they're my favorites (they're up there, but I prefer Ye and a few others) the rest of the top five should probably be 2pac, Big, OutKast and Wu. The top ten should be flushed out by Ye, HOV, De La, Nas and so on.

My personal top 10 would begin with Kanye of course, but we're talking about all time here, and I think Tribe takes the cake. I'm forgetting some folks, but whatever.

Fuck Biggie, fuck Pussy Daddy, fuck all that shit ass CRAP. I fucking hated it then and I hated it now. fucking lame ass rhymes about a fat ass how he used to sell crack and now he lives all large and shit eating 10,000 calories a day to maintain his fat fucking fat assss......

now that that is off my chest....

Went with the wife to see Rae Sremmurd at UH's Frontier Fiesta Saturday.

Had a lot of fun, the sound system was bass heavy and sounded clear, and Rae Sremmurd were equally as LIT as the audience was, who mostly had been partying since 10 hours earlier, but goddamn it if the PA did not cut out 5 fucking times!!!! fucking amateur student program board. I was a member of it when I was in school and setting up those giant PA systems is tricky, but to have it cut out completely 5 times in the middle of songs while the act is so hype that when it cuts off it gets deflated???? sucked.

Otherwise great show and the Rae Sremmurd fellas really come out to entertain. not just a seemingly endless sequence of dudes spitting one verse and then crowding around onstage....

Yeah they're good. I'm really eager to see what their next lp has in store for us, because their debut was quite a stunner.

Re: PA systems - see, this is why when I fancied myself a musician, my bands never, NEVER, relied on in house sound techs to do set up. We (myself and the two guys with whom I played the most) took a year of audio recording classes just so we could handle that shit ourselves.
It made us better musicians, and saved us money as well.

Re - Notorious BIG: ok, fine, you don't like either. But why the hell does his weight have to come up? Both you and SFAD call him a fat ass, as though it's somehow not extremely clear to everyone that he was a big man. He named himself the Notorious BIG for fuck's sake! He was also had a lazy eye. Should we be talking about that? Does that have something to do with his skills as an emcee? What about his general, overall ugliness, which he was also quite aware of... What about that shit?

Was 2pac good because he looked like a caramel angel? Fuck no. Cover him on warts and pimples and give him a spare tire and he'd still be an incredible rapper.

It's fine if you don't like BIG, but it's pretty juvenile to act as though his weight has anything to do with anything. Wiz K and Young Thuh are super skinny. Does that ever factor in to our discussions about them? You're both way too smart to say such stupid things, Rob and SFAD.

If you want to argue that Notorious BIG was not an influential rapper, why don't you talk about why that's the case, in the context of his music and the music that followed? There are a lot of fat musicians, thin musicians, ugly and pretty musicians, but since we're, y'know, not high school kids, I tend to think we're capable of discussing music in a way that doesn't devolve into childish insults.

Also, y'all are two of the only "rap fans" I've ever encountered who don't think BIG's influence is a thing so obvious it doesn't even need to be discussed. Even before he died, he was goddamn huge. I'd actually have to say from memory that he had a more immediate impact on rap than 2pac did. You can hear him in every important rapper of the last decade and the decade before that. Kendrick (despite being more of a 2pac man himself), Joey Bada$$, YG, Action Bronson, Schoolboy Q...

Fuck it. You guys feel however you want. Pop culture history disagrees with you, and I'm personally disappointed by your weak and petty arguments. Big pun was fat. Ghostface is fat. Eazy E was fat. Dre used to be fat, after he was a "she-thang," and before he became a super weird looking freshly skinny dude. If you're gonna make the conversation about weight, you don't deserve to take part. You're better than that.

I put Kanye on the list so you know its not personal or just my tastes. I honestly and genuinely do NOT see Biggie as being influential. Yes, sure, at a "local" level but to make an ALL TIME list got to be all time influential. I don't HEAR Biggie in other rap like i hear the other top 10 i posted..

Kanye West's "Famous" from the Life of Pablo is now available on Spotify.

Yet another what the fuck move... but it's a good sign, I guess. Jammin track too.

Ok, well. Fair enough. You are part of a minority so small that it's literally statistically insignificant, so it doesn't matter.

Meh.. i don't mind being in the minority somebody got to hold it down for the Truth yo #BiggieIsOverrated

I think Pac was a better rapper than Biggie. Though I think Ready To Die is a better album than any one Pac album. I listen to Pac way more tho.

I think Nas was better than Biggie. Or maybe I should say Illmatic was better than Ready To Die. There's a strong urge to compare those two albums, released the same year, debuts, baby pics on the cover. It's like they were 2 sides of the same coin. Illmatic was deep and Ready was def aimed at the radio.

I'm just rambling here. Top 10 lists are generally useless, but they can be fun to kick off conversation.

HIS NAME IS BIGGIE SMALLS

That kind of sets himself up for it no?

I mean Big Pun, Fat Joe, Heavy D, the list goes on and on and on.....

never mind. That period in mainstream hip hop just killed me. I fucking hate when a song is nearly exactly sampled note for note for a full track, and Puff Daddy fucking made that shit be the standard for a decade. Fuck that motherfucker....

I never said BIG was not influential and a big touchstone in hip hop, just that I hate and hated every single thing that was released by him.

The Eagles are a huge touchstone in rock music and I fucking despise them assholes tooooo

That was puff not biggie. Be fair now.
Biggie's records had puff all over them, but you're talking about Puff Daddy and the Family. All those singles that just stole from Duran Duran, the Police, David Bowie, Grabdmaster Flash, etc. yeah, those were shit.

But hey, "mo money mo problems" holds up. That was a Biggie track. It only used the sample for the hook and it was damn infectious. Rolling Stone recently voted it the #2 song of the '90s (which even I can't wrap my head around), second only to "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

Anyway, I know Puff is terrible in every way, but I still love the production on "Juicy." That song was... (sigh) my jam... back in the day. I have so many blurry memories of my friends throwing that shit on just for me, while I was riding around with them, getting into trouble. No matter how fucked up I was, that song perked me right up, and I'd rap along to it like a goddamn fool.

We're all entitled to our own opinions. To not like him is legit, to say he's not influential is just silly.

Oh man, for me it's definitely Ready to Die > Illmatic > whatever pac album. Probably seven day theory. But Big owned '94.

Sev stop being a pussy over here slurping the Biggie nuts and dissing us like our opinions aren't shit or worth shit because they disagree with yours but yet you ain't posted a Top Ten list yet. Easy to criticize, harder to do something about it.

And if you legitimately think that Ready to Die is better than 7 day theory i suppose you're list doesn't matter anyway ;)

Huh? You're way too sensitive man.

As I said repeatedly, it's fine if you don't like Biggie, but saying he's not influential is a different story. I also said we all have our own opinions, blah blah. What are you getting your back up about?

I don't know what my top ten would be personally, but I laid out what I feel the objective top-ten most influential artists are pretty well. Remember, 1. ATCQ, with pac, biggie, Wu and OutKast filling out the rest of the top 5? Followed by Kanye, Nas, HOV, De La... also PE and NWA for sure.

There. Not sure what order I'd put it in exactly, but I feel like that covers it pretty well. So stop complaining. We're just shooting the shit here.

Thanks for putting a winky face in there. It helps a lot with you, actually.

Yes, I prefer Ready to Die to many records. It's just a tier below MBDTF and Wu-Tang Forever and Midnight Marauders for me. Seven Day Theory is fucking awesome, my favorite Pac record, but I'm just more of a BIG dude than a Pac dude. I've gone on about 7 Day Theory before... You know I love it. But it's not quite in the Severian pantheon.

This is called stalling.. where is yo list partna?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uGMbC82NOdo

Ah! Ok, all time most influential hip hop artists according to me right now:

1. Tribe
2. 2pac
3. Kanye
4. Notorious BIG
5. OutKast
6. Wu-Tang Clan
7. NWA
8. Jay-Z
9. De La Soul
10. Public Enemy

You made me make a snap decision. This is based on influence alone.