Lauryn Hill rules.

I just realized that I often forget to name Lauryn Hill as one of my biggest influences as a rapper. I always turned her shit up on the Fugees joints, and I listened to Miseducation probably several thousand times front to back. One of the songs of it is playing now, because Sarah put it on…and I’m telling you…this shit still shuts down 90% of what I hear, and certainly anything *I’VE* ever done. Here’s a random list of rappers I loved in my formative rap years (I’m forgetting some, of course. If you used to hang out with me and can remember one lemme know).

Go ahead and give me a random list of rappers you loved in your formative rap years…say between ages 16 - 21 (which is now for some of y’all!) Only the first rapper is in any particular order because he’s my favourite ever.

- Grym Reaper aka Too Poetic
- Chuck D
- KRS-One
- Lil’ Kim
- Pharaohe Monche
- Lauryn Hill
- ESHAM (and NATAS)
- Twista
- Kool Keith
- Obviously all of Wu, I’m from the east, but my fav was always Sons of Man and the obvious joints like Rae, GZA, etc.
- Too $hort
- Redman

I’m talking about amazing shit I found before I was introduced to the second wave (to me) of rapstyles…before the Sage Francis’s and Aesop Rocks (other big influences, obvs), Aceyalone, etc. these were the cats and kittens that stood out to me and made me want to listen to more rap than my parents wanted me to listen to.

1 comment