Kanye West

[Kevin Davis]

All fair points.....now lets listen to Nas rap about being inside his mother's womb

I always loved the song "I Gave You Power." It blew my mind when, about four years after hearing it for the first time, I realized the first person narrator in the song was a gun.

[Rangi Guy]

The best thing about this thread is that it's given me a new appreciation of Nas

[elliseamos]

i feel like nas is too word oriented. that's not to say i don't like him or appreciate him, but he feels too focused on that part of his art, while leaving production to others. something kanye would never do, yes, sometimes to the detriment of his own words, but not always. i like many different artists of this style/genre for many different reasons. for me, kanye's lyrics fit his songs, much like anybody else singing voodoo child would miss the mark. i fully expected rakim, biggie, or tupac to be the response, so thank you for picking nas to keep it interesting. honestly, the only all-around artist that i'd say is better than kanye would have to be rza.

[warehouse]

i feel like nas is too word oriented.

this is like saying eric clapton plays the blues too much. its who he is.

and i really have no problem w rakim, biggie or tupac. in fact i watched that tupac documentary recently, and its really, really good.

[Kevin Davis]

Neither 2pac nor Biggie ever struck me as an especially great lyricist; I wouldn't put either of them above Kanye, really.

[epilogue]

I do not belong in this thread.

[warehouse]

Neither 2pac nor Biggie ever struck me as an especially great lyricist; I wouldn't put either of them above Kanye, really.

i cant really judge rappers on lyrics alone. delivery is always part of it. some tupac songs are so angry i could work out to them. biggie has more of an r&b vibe to his delivery, but is probably equally as awesome. busta rhymes is another artist i love, and im pretty sure he has terrible lyrics. he just has an unbelievable flow.

[VinylGuy]

is Kanye a good songwriter or just a good producer?? i really havent heard any of his songs, i tried to listen to one of albums and couldnt stand it.

[Kevin Davis]

i cant really judge rappers on lyrics alone. delivery is always part of it.

I'd say this is true for songwriters in most musical genres--even lyricists as widely regarded as Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, their lyrics would mean far less if they didn't know as singers how to phrase them, in essence teaching people, by way of their performance, how their writing is supposed to be consumed. I love a lot of 2pac songs for the reason you describe (Biggie never did much for me personally, though I think "Things Done Changed" and "Juicy" are both great tracks), and would say I think a lot of Kanye's tracks are carried by that same passion, that same uninhibited sense of ferocity. I remember in 2004 or 2005 seeing him do "Jesus Walks" on the Grammys and just being blown away by how into the performance he was, and then thinking the same thing late in 2005 when I saw him perform live in support of "Late Registration." His words and his delivery carry each other, which is one of the reasons I think of him--or at least the relationship between who he is as a songwriter and who he is as a performer, as well as the stranglehold he has on the direction of his own vision--similar to how I think of someone like Dylan or Waits, someone who largely transcends categories or even conventional technical criteria, to the point where the only thing that really matters is the relationship between the performer and his own work.

When he's firing on all cylinders, I'd probably say Ghostface is my favorite rapper--someone whose lyrics and delivery are very much tied together. He's extremely inconsistent, but his on moments are just superhuman. And while I don't know a lot of his work, I really like El-P's lyrics and delivery on "Cancer for Cure."

is Kanye a good songwriter or just a good producer?? i really havent heard any of his songs, i tried to listen to one of albums and couldnt stand it.

He's both, especially considering how linked songwriting and production are in this art form. What didn't you like about the album you listened to? If you can't get past his persona, his stuff is going to grate on your nerves very quickly, that's for sure.

[Orpheus]

Neither 2pac nor Biggie ever struck me as an especially great lyricist; I wouldn't put either of them above Kanye, really.

Whut. Both were far beyond Kanye.

[Orpheus]

Lyrics will never be Kanye's strong suit as he's more of a "songwriter" than a "rapper" and really always will be. He's very good at what he does though and I loved his last album.

For a modern comparison put him next to Kendrick Lamar and Danny Brown and he falls pretty flat, lyrics wise.

[elliseamos]

i feel like nas is too word oriented.

this is like saying eric clapton plays the blues too much. its who he is.

and i really have no problem w rakim, biggie or tupac. in fact i watched that tupac documentary recently, and its really, really good.

Clapton does play the blues too much. He's great at it, but he's never shown me much range as a guitarist.

As for my comment about Nas and his word-centric approach, I think you agree with me:

Neither 2pac nor Biggie ever struck me as an especially great lyricist; I wouldn't put either of them above Kanye, really.

i cant really judge rappers on lyrics alone. delivery is always part of it. some tupac songs are so angry i could work out to them. biggie has more of an r&b vibe to his delivery, but is probably equally as awesome. busta rhymes is another artist i love, and im pretty sure he has terrible lyrics. he just has an unbelievable flow.

My statement wasn't that Nas's work is bad b/c of his attention to lyrics, it was more that with Kanye's work, his lyrics fit his songs well, which I think makes him a good lyricist.

Other artists, and we see this often, could have the same flow over a different backing track and it still sounds good (I' thinking The Grey Album). Kanye's catalog, especially these days, would not lend itself well to this. I could be wrong, does he have a remix album?

[warehouse]

i feel like nas is too word oriented.

this is like saying eric clapton plays the blues too much. its who he is.

and i really have no problem w rakim, biggie or tupac. in fact i watched that tupac documentary recently, and its really, really good.

Clapton does play the blues too much. He's great at it, but he's never shown me much range as a guitarist.

As for my comment about Nas and his word-centric approach, I think you agree with me:

Neither 2pac nor Biggie ever struck me as an especially great lyricist; I wouldn't put either of them above Kanye, really.

i cant really judge rappers on lyrics alone. delivery is always part of it. some tupac songs are so angry i could work out to them. biggie has more of an r&b vibe to his delivery, but is probably equally as awesome. busta rhymes is another artist i love, and im pretty sure he has terrible lyrics. he just has an unbelievable flow.

My statement wasn't that Nas's work is bad b/c of his attention to lyrics, it was more that with Kanye's work, his lyrics fit his songs well, which I think makes him a good lyricist.

Other artists, and we see this often, could have the same flow over a different backing track and it still sounds good (I' thinking The Grey Album). Kanye's catalog, especially these days, would not lend itself well to this. I could be wrong, does he have a remix album?

gotcha. that makes sense, thanks for clearing that up. however, i'll never agree w/ u again about anything after that statement about clapton.

[elliseamos]

Another thing I thought of, just b/c I don't know, but has he been writing lyrics/rhymes as long as others have? I know he came up as a producer, so I'm not sure.

[bart]

Neither 2pac nor Biggie ever struck me as an especially great lyricist; I wouldn't put either of them above Kanye, really.

Oh for crying out loud.

[Orpheus]

Yeah, that's a headscratcher for sure.

[verb_to_trust]

Another thing I thought of, just b/c I don't know, but has he been writing lyrics/rhymes as long as others have? I know he came up as a producer, so I'm not sure.

No, he hasn't. Because he sucks at it. His songs succeed despite his weak rhymes. There is a reason he was a producer first.

[warehouse]

The best thing about this thread is that it's given me a new appreciation of Nas

he's probably the first rapper i remember having to rewind what i was listening to so i could hear it again. dudes got a way w words.

[Kevin Davis]

Yeah, that's a headscratcher for sure.

I like 2pac a lot, and think he has a sense of lyrical rhythm that is more or less unsurpassed, but as a writer I've always found him to be a little one-note. He uses a very dry, straightforward vocabulary, which can often enhance the raw power of the point he's making, but it doesn't engage my senses the way my favorite lyricists (and especially my favorite rappers) do. I wouldn't call Kanye one of my favorite lyricists, mind you, but I am more consistently surprised by his turns of phrase, wordplay, allusions, and range of subject matter than I am by 2pac's, whose songs' power (for me) lie more in his ability to convey the stark realities of a certain lifestyle than in his personal gift for manipulating words. Again, I'm not trying to argue that Kanye's the best in the business or anything, but at least in reference to how it came up in this thread, I don't find a considerable enough difference between the two artists' raw talents to really view one or the other as clearly superior. What each one does is right enough in its own framework.

I'll admit I'm not the right person to offer any kind of proper analysis of Biggie. I like a few of his songs but largely I think he's one of the most unduly revered artists of our time.

[Orpheus]

Biggie was an amazing lyricist. Pretty much the quintessential "hard-hitting" MC. He was similar to Nas in the while he always had good production, the production was never really the star of the show (even though P Diddy got a lot of press.) Biggy could have rapped over a Casio beat and killed it. Kanye has gotten better but he's still nothing without his production abilities.