Who is king of rap

Now greater than three many years previous as a recorded medium, hip-hop is deeply embedded in common tradition – to the purpose the place its stars appear not solely bigger than life but in addition, as Rick Ross as soon as put it, “deeper than rap.” However whilst they promote out arenas and high the pop charts, rappers nonetheless court docket the respect and esteem of their hip-hop friends. The title King of Hip-Hop nonetheless means one thing.In that spirit, simply as we did in June with the Queen of Pop, we’ve crunched a pile of knowledge to attempt to decide who’s the present King of Hip-Hop.Reading: Who is king of rapWe’re not in search of the all-time best, though lots of our contenders would vie for that crown. A few of them have solely been recording a few years; others have been within the recreation because the Nineteen Nineties. However that’s what makes hip-hop thrilling – it’s believable for somebody who was watching cartoons when Jay-Z dropped his debut album to emerge as a contender for the title.As with our Queen of Pop tally, in naming the King of Hip-Hop we centered on the very latest previous: from 2009 by means of the primary seven months of 2011. We ranked 20 solo rappers (no teams – sorry, Beasties) who’ve dropped an album throughout that point. We checked out album gross sales, rankings on the R&B/hip-hop and rap charts, YouTube views, social media, live performance grosses, business awards and critics’ rankings. In alphabetical order, our contenders are: Massive Boi, B.o.B, Diddy, Drake, Eminem, Fabolous, Lupe Fiasco, Gucci Mane, Jay-Z, Child Cudi, Lil Wayne, Ludacris, Nicki Minaj, Pitbull, Rick Ross, Snoop Dogg, T.I., Waka Flocka Flame, Kanye West and Wiz Khalifa.All of our contenders are males apart from Minaj, who reappears from our Queen of Pop survey. We like to think about “King” as a gender-neutral time period, and the very fact is that Minaj has earned the best to compete on this area. It could really feel unusual to depart her out – as a rapper, she’s had a world-beating couple of years, with a chart-topping album, block-rocking singles and a slew of killer visitor appearances. Frankly, she deserves to be known as a hip-hop king only for her giant-killing look on West’s hit “Monster,” during which she crushed West and fellow visitors Rick Ross and Jay-Z with one blow.Followers of the rappers, and the acts themselves, take these kinds of rankings fairly severely. (We discovered that firsthand within the feedback part of Queens of Pop.) We stand by our information, however in fact we all know that no King of Hip-Hop index can seize swagger or stream – if it might, the all-time title would possibly go to Q-Tip or Rakim. As you’ll see, it turned out to be a reasonably thrilling contest. Our high general contenders had been fairly evenly matched, with 5 completely different rappers main no less than one tally every.Let’s begin with the tally that comes with the largest bragging rights: album gross sales.ALBUM SALESHad been we saying one thing a few shut contest? Not on the album tally, the place comeback king Eminem takes the highest slot by an absurd margin. Due to his two newest chart-topping albums, 2009’s Relapse and 2010’s Restoration, the person in any other case often known as Slim Shady bought greater than two and a half instances the variety of albums because the second-ranked Lil Wayne throughout our survey interval.Greater than half of Eminem’s 7.5 million in gross sales had been taken by Restoration. Now previous 4 million copies within the U.S. alone, Restoration was the best-selling album, interval, of 2010. One-fourth of these albums bought digitally, making it the primary album in historical past to promote greater than one million non-physical copies, a mark it crossed simply final month. Regardless of shedding the Album of the 12 months Grammy in an upset to Arcade Fireplace, Restoration nonetheless took residence Greatest Rap Album, Eminem’s fifth win that class. It additionally doesn’t damage to have a crossover hit tune to gas album gross sales, and Restoration had a monster: the Rihanna-supported ballad “Love the Way You Lie,” which topped the Scorching 100 for 2 months final yr and doubtless fueled extra soccer-mom album purchases for Shady than at any time in his profession.What’s most spectacular about Lil Wayne’s second-place exhibiting is he did it with a handicap – his smash Tha Carter III got here out in 2008, earlier than the beginning of our survey interval. He’s bought one other 750,000 copies of that blockbuster from 2009 to now. A fair greater handicap may need been Weezy’s eight-month jail sentence in 2010-11, however he managed to launch two discs in 2010 earlier than going to jail, and each had robust numbers: about 750,000 for the rock-rap hybrid Rebirth, and just below one million for his hip-hop return I Am Not a Human Being. All that is apart from his quite a few mixtape releases, which have bought tens of hundreds. The man is nothing if not prolific (simply wait till we get to the songs tally).In contrast to Weezy, a lot of the acts in our survey solely managed one album launch throughout our two-and-a-half-year survey interval. Jay-Z’s third-place exhibiting was principally the results of his two million-selling 2009 smash The Blueprint 3. However Jigga possible would have appeared spectacular irrespective of after we took this survey during the last decade. With 11 Quantity One albums on the Billboard 200 over his profession, Jay holds the title of probably the most chart-topping albums amongst solo acts, rappers or in any other case; and he’s second amongst all artists, behind solely the Beatles (who’ve 20 Quantity One discs, so Jay’s received a strategy to go there).Amongst acts decrease down within the tally, respect must be accorded to Rick Ross, who solely positioned eighth however has been a mannequin of album-chart consistency in his five-year profession. All 4 of the large man’s albums have debuted within the Billboard 200’s high two, and whereas none has been a megablockbuster, every has bought within the mid-six figures. Of the 2 discs he launched throughout our survey interval, the second – 2010’s 650,000-selling Teflon Don – was his first to overlook the Quantity One spot, however it nonetheless managed to out-sell its predecessor, 2009’s Deeper Than Rap, by almost 200,000 copies.Now let’s flip to songs, the place a rookie with just one full-length album to his title has emerged as a runaway radio powerhouse.Associated• The 100 Best Artists of All Time: EminemBILLBOARD’S R&B/HIP-HOP AND RAP SONGS CHARTSIn case you had been certainly one of our extra conspiracy-minded commenters, you would possibly complain that we picked the 2009 begin date for our survey so Drake would win. We didn’t, however it’s true that no person advantages extra from our survey interval than Aubrey Graham, the Canadian teen-soap star who took America’s charts by storm beginning in 2009 after remodeling right into a single-named rapper.For an artwork kind that when prized avenue credibility, ideally from certainly one of a handful of American cities, hip-hop has embraced the clean-cut Drake remarkably rapidly. His function on Degrassi: The Subsequent Technology had barely ended when he started contributing tracks to mixtapes by mentor Lil Wayne’s Younger Cash crew. Thanks maybe to Weezy’s Good Hip-Hopping seal of approval, a slew of main rap figures lined as much as report with Drake: of the 19 different acts in our survey, virtually half – from Jay-Z to Eminem to T.I. to Diddy – have launched tracks fronted or backed by him.Thanks largely to all of these appearances, Drake leads, by a cushty margin, our tally of Billboard‘s two urban-radio-oriented charts. They are the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, which, under various names (e.g., Hot Soul Singles, Hot Black Singles), has existed for half a century; and Hot Rap Songs, which dates to the end of the 1980s, back when Flavor Flav was still known as a rapper.Drake has visited the penthouse of these two charts more than anyone else during the last three years. You might think that his tendency to sing rather than rap on many of his hits would make him more popular on the R&B chart, but he is actually bigger on Rap Songs: Drake reached Number One four times as a lead artist there, with “Best I Ever Had,” “Forever,” “Over” and “Fancy”; and five more times as a guest on tracks by Timbaland, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj and DJ Khaled. On the R&B chart, “Best” went to Number One, and Drake backed up five other records that rang the bell, including jams by Trey Songz and Jamie Foxx.While we’re discussing visitor recordings, a technical be aware: Throughout the entire King of Hip-Hop tallies, we award partial credit score to rappers’ featured performances. It could be unfair to not – visitor verses have been a staple of rap hits because the music’s inception, and these days tracks with out backup are the exception, not the rule. When assigning factors for the R&B/Hip-Hop and Rap charts, we gave full credit score to a lead efficiency and one-third credit score for a featured efficiency; the variety of visitors on rap tracks usually ranges between one and 4, and so dividing the factors by three appeared like an inexpensive common. On each surveys, we awarded factors primarily based on every tune’s peak place and its complete weeks charted.We’re exhibiting the tallies for the R&B/Hip-Hop and Rap tallies side-by-side, because the outcomes have rather a lot in frequent, together with an an identical high two (Drake and Lil Wayne). However there are some main variations as you get additional down.For instance, you wouldn’t anticipate gruff Southern rapper Gucci Mane to take action significantly better on the R&B checklist, the place he locations third, than on the Rap tally, the place he misses the highest 10 completely. The key of Gucci’s R&B radio success: quantity – like Drake, he will get round as a visitor star. Gucci has backed up romantic crooners together with Omarion, Mario and Jagged Edge, and 17 such appearances have madeBillboard‘s R&B/Hip-Hop chart, dwarfing his 10 lead appearances. But most of those guest appearances don’t assist him a lot on Billboard’s Rap Songs, which is a smaller chart (25 positions) and leaves out quite a lot of data that make the decrease rungs of the 100-position R&B/Hip-Hop checklist. To make Rap Songs, your hit actually must be booming from automobiles all over the place – this chart tends to reward huge lead performances over visitor spots.Gucci’s not alone on the skewed lead-to-featured ratio: half of our contenders made extra appearances on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart as featured performers than as leads. For some, the ratio is nearly even – Nicki Minaj began her profession largely as a supporting rapper however is catching up on the lead aspect, with 9 charting singles underneath her personal title versus 10 as a featured performer. (This explains her higher efficiency on the Rap Songs tally, the place her huge hits as a lead, like “Moment 4 Life” and “Super Bass,” assist her place third general.) On the different excessive, promiscuous visitor star Lil Wayne has scored solely eight lead R&B chart performances since 2009, versus 29 supporting performances throughout the identical span. (One imagines Weezy driving from studio to studio like Michael McDonald, able to drop 32 bars for buddies.)Read more: Pastor David Wilson Biography: Pastor Wilson video, Corinthia Edwards & more [Video]Let’s flip from the radio to a different area the place hit songs rule the day, and featured performances make a distinction: YouTube.Associated • Weed, High Cooks and Rick Ross: Drake Ranges Extensive on New AlbumYOUTUBEWhen tallying the views racked up by our contenders’ official music movies, we had been reminded of an ironclad YouTube rule: Pop guidelines.Of the ten movies we tracked that had been considered greater than 100 million instances, 9 had been High 5 hits on the Billboard Scorching 100, together with Jennifer Lopez’s “On the Floor” that includes Pitbull, Katy Perry’s “E.T.” that includes Kanye West, and Jay-Z’s team-up with Alicia Keys, “Empire State of Mind.” (As for that tenth video, “Price Tag” by Jessie J that includes B.o.B., it topped the pop chart in Britain.)Solely certainly one of these nine-figure-viewers is a video from a rapper by himself – one who’s neither supporting a singer nor being supported by one. That might be Eminem, who goes it alone on his 2010 hit “Not Afraid,” the video of which has been watched 257 million instances. Maybe it’s acceptable, then, that Eminem leads our YouTube tally – once more, as along with his albums lead, by a large margin. The 1.3 billion complete video views collected by Mr. Mathers are double these of perpetual runner-up Lil Wayne. Virtually half of these views come from simply two clips: the aforementioned “Not Afraid,” and (in fact) “Love the Way You Lie.” That Rihanna-supported clip has been watched 360 million instances, probably the most of any lead efficiency by any of our rappers.That isn’t the most-watched video any of our contenders seems in, nevertheless. Crushing Em and Ri is the video for “Baby” by Justin Bieber that includes Ludacris, which has been considered an astounding 589 million instances, probably the most of any video in YouTube historical past. (That view rely was as of two weeks in the past, after we collected our numbers; as of this writing it’s cruising towards 600 million.) As with our R&B/Hip-Hop and Rap Songs tallies, we give one-third credit score for supporting performances on YouTube, which helps clarify Luda’s placement within the high 4 of this survey.Chuckle at Chris Bridges and his squeaky-clean Bieber verse all you need, however most rappers in all probability envy him. The mere proven fact that Ludacris is in a King of Hip-Hop survey in 2011, and does respectably on most of our tallies, is a testomony to an unflashy however persistently productive profession. Greater than a decade after he presciently titled his debut album Again for the First Time, Luda retains coming again, appearing in acclaimed films, persistently releasing chart-topping albums (throughout our survey interval, not a very huge one for him, he shifted just below one million discs) and dropping verses for a spread of R&B stars. Simply since 2009, he’s appeared within the R&B High 10 thrice on his personal – together with the Quantity 2 hit “My Chick Bad” with fellow contender Nicki Minaj – and three extra instances backing up singers Ciara, Chris Brown and LeToya. As for our YouTube tally, again out that Bieber blockbuster and all his different featured credit, and Luda would nonetheless have 192 million views, a complete sufficiently big to to place him simply exterior the highest 10 by itself. Whether or not on the large or small screens, individuals like watching this man.Consistent with the YouTube pop theme, the rappers in our survey who lean towards the High 40 aspect of the dial do higher on this tally than every other, significantly Latin club-rapper Pitbull and pop-rap teamer-upper B.o.B., who place fifth and sixth, respectively. Pitbull’s look in J. Lo’s “On the Floor” provides him a giant increase, as that clip has been considered greater than 300 million instances; however his personal summer season 2011 Scorching 100 chart-topper “Give Me Everything” has been watched almost 75 million instances, as properly. As for B.o.B., his team-up with Paramore’s Hayley Williams on “Airplanes” has been seen 136 million instances, adopted by his pairing with Bruno Mars on the soul ballad “Nothin’ on You,” with 80 million viewings – and, because the credited lead performer on each tracks, B.o.B will get full factors for these hefty totals.Whereas we’re centered on the visible, let’s flip our consideration to the dwell stage, the place our perpetual runner-up takes a commanding lead.Associated • The 30 Greatest Albums of 2010: Eminem’s ‘Recovery’TOURINGGive Lil Wayne and Jay-Z credit score – they’ve cracked the code in the case of dwell hip-hop. Rap has lengthy been a tricky promote on the live performance stage due to skittish promoters, weak stagecraft and detached audiences (save for the occasional touring competition like Rock the Bells, rock-oriented rap acts just like the Beastie Boys or sure one-off reveals by superstars). Solely within the final half-decade, as hip-hop enters center age, have rap excursions begun to attract grosses corresponding to and aggressive with road-warrior rock acts.For the previous few years, Lil Wayne has been the largest draw on the street amongst rappers, placing collectively eclectic packages that enchantment to the total spectrum of his fan base. Supporting acts have ranged from T-Ache to Keyshia Cole to Health club Class Heroes, making the entire of a Weezy tour higher than the sum of its elements. Wayne’s $51 million complete gross since 2009 contains dates from his I Am Music tour (which kicked off in 2008, within the wake of Tha Carter III‘s blockbuster sales) and America’s Most Wished excursions, which collectively performed to some 724,000 followers throughout 68 live shows. Shortage, maybe, has additionally helped – Weezy’s incarceration in late 2010 in all probability made his return to the stage in 2011 hotly anticipated, and a brand new tour with Rick Ross has been promoting briskly.Coming in second on our dwell tally, Jay-Z gives, in essence, the opposite mannequin of hip-hop touring success: rapper as confident Chairman of the Board (Frank Sinatra allusion absolutely supposed). A decade and a half into his profession, Jigga has an enviable catalog of rap classics worthy of a two-hour showcase. And whereas his reveals usually draw spectacular assist acts comparable to Mary J. Blige, Jay has the authority to headline showcases as massive as Coachella or Britain’s Glastonbury competition on his personal. The Blueprint 3 tour made Jay 2010’s high hip-hop live performance draw and one of many largest acts on the street, interval. When he does share the highlight, it’s with a fellow famous person. His 4 reveals in 2010 with Eminem, two every in Detroit and New York, reportedly grossed $15 million by themselves. And the forthcoming head-to-head tour by Jay-Z and Kanye West following the discharge of their joint album Watch the Throne guarantees to be a blockbuster.For our contenders who’ve served as opening acts, we’ve apportioned one-fourth credit score, which in a few circumstances supplies a stable increase. Nicki Minaj has simply began headlining gigs on her personal, however as an opener for Britney Spears and Lil Wayne she has performed for hundreds of individuals. Drake and Rick Ross have additionally opened for Wayne, and the previous’s participation within the blockbuster America’s Most Wished jaunt provides him a big carry in our tally (Ross has solely began touring with Wayne this summer season, so his grosses are smaller). Rookies like Minaj and Drake have made plenty of new buddies on the street as openers, setting themselves as much as headline their very own excursions.Talking of constructing buddies, let’s check out how our contenders are doing on the social-media entrance.Associated •Lil Wayne: A Historical past in PicturesSOCIAL NETWORKINGAs with YouTube, Eminem is king of social media, racking up the biggest variety of each buddies and followers on the key websites.Slim Shady’s command of Fb is especially eye-popping – almost 44 million followers have “liked” him there, inserting him not solely 14 million followers forward of Lil Wayne but in addition a few million forward of such pop figures as Rihanna (43 million) and Girl Gaga (42 million). In actual fact, amongst precise people, Em is extra “liked” than anybody; throughout all of Fb the one issues given the thumbs-up greater than him are Texas Maintain’em Poker and Fb itself.On Twitter, Eminem’s lead amongst rappers is slimmer – his 5 million followers high these of his “Roman’s Revenge” duet associate Nicki Minaj by solely 600,000 or so. And for a public determine and a musician, it have to be stated his following is robust however not particularly outstanding – Gaga and Justin Bieber handed 10 million followers a number of months in the past, and Em can be soundly overwhelmed by such pop starlets as Britney Spears, Katy Perry and Shakira.Maybe verbally acute rappers are too hemmed in by the bounds of a 140-character tweet – a size higher fitted to the newest ideas by pop acts servicing their armies of younger followers. To grow to be a aggressive tweeter, it helps to have a well-defined, larger-than-life persona: Diddy and Snoop, two veteran rappers who’ve constructed reputations far past their standing as MCs, have the third- and fourth-highest numbers of Twitter followers, respectively.The act maybe finest recognized for spewing pithy ideas is world-class tweeter Kanye West, who ranks fifth amongst rappers in Twitter followers (eighth general in our Social tally). So (in)well-known are Ye’s shoot-from-the-hip, ceaselessly all-CAPS tweets that complete comedy sketches have revolved round them. It’s truly type of stunning Kanye doesn’t rank increased – though it’s conceivable that one other million or two of former Twitter followers received fed up along with his loquaciousness and dropped him.Read more: Who did arizona cheat on callie withEarlier than Kanye will get insulted and tweets about this, let’s give a toast to him by taking a look at the place the critics place him amongst his friends.Associated • The five hundred Best Albums of All Time: Eminem’s ‘The Eminem Show’ALBUM REVIEWSIt ought to come as no shock that Kanye West – a man who has launched 5 extensively praised albums in seven years, together with two Rolling Stone five-star discs – ought to high our important acclaim rating, which mixes our rankings with profession album rankings by Metacritic.Within the historical past of hip-hop, solely West has produced a physique of labor at this degree of all-killer-no-filler acclamation. Public Enemy adopted their years of awesomeness with a number of late-career duds; the Infamous B.I.G. didn’t dwell lengthy sufficient to increase his two-album streak of greatness; and even West’s mentor Jay-Z has a few low-rated discs amongst his string of classics. In “Pazz and Jop,” the Village Voice‘s annual year-end poll of critics nationwide, West has ended up on top three times (a mark equaled only by Bob Dylan), with 2004’s The School Dropout, 2005’s Late Registration and 2010’s My Lovely Darkish Twisted Fantasy. The latter two earned Rolling Stone‘s “classic” rating upon release, again unprecedented among rap discs. West’s high-rated albums have additionally been top-sellers, however different acts with a extra restricted industrial presence profit much more from our critics’ tally.Coming in second is a rapper who, along with his previous group, reached heights of each acclaim and gross sales few rappers take pleasure in, however as a solo act is beginning nearly from scratch – OutKast’s Antwan “Big Boi” Patton. He’s launched just one solo album, however it was a gem: 2010’s Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty. Lengthy in gestation and repeatedly delayed by a label that wished he would reunite with André 3000, Massive Boi’s debut disc lastly dropped final yr to a raft of A-level evaluations.Towards the underside of this tally, Fabolous has lengthy been extra common on the radio than with critics, whereas the extra pop-leaning rappers, comparable to B.o.B and Pitbull, additionally obtain little love. Considerably extra stunning is the location for Snoop Dogg, who falls third from the underside. His profession common has been damage by the sheer quantity of albums he’s launched – often one yearly or two, lots of them middling in high quality.Earlier than we shut out, let’s take a look at one final measure of acclaim: awards.Associated • The 30 Greatest Albums of 2010: Kanye West’s ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’AWARDSPossibly Jay-Z actually is, as he claims, rap’s Frank Sinatra – amongst our contenders he’s the largest award-winner, not in contrast to Ol’ Blue Eyes within the early days of the Grammys. In actual fact, Jigga has collected a statuette at virtually the entire reveals we tracked. Our awards rating totals up the contenders’ wins since 2009 on the American Music, Billboard, BET, Grammy, MTV and Soul Prepare awards. We gave bonus factors for nominations on the Grammys and – due to their significance to the hip-hop neighborhood, particularly after the demise of the Supply Awards – BET’s two awards reveals (BET Music and BET Hip-Hop); we additionally gave additional credit score for Grammy and BET wins.Jay’s dominance is basically fueled by his Grammy and BET omnipresence. Even when he hadn’t taken residence a single statue at these reveals, his 16 Grammy nods and 23 BET nods would put him close to the highest; he earns the title due to his seven Grammy and 9 BET wins, plus a handful of AMA and MTV wins.No act has been extra nominated by the Grammys than Jay-Z since 2009, however Eminem got here shut, with 13 nods, many in higher-profile classes like Album and Track of the 12 months – classes that eluded Jigga. On the two BET awards reveals, Jay has probably the most wins however not probably the most nominations; Drake, with 26, and Lil Wayne, with 25, every noticed their names listed extra instances collectively.Of the smaller awards-givers, the Billboard Awards present the largest increase to a single act: 15 wins for Eminem, a sweep fueled by the chart dominance of his 2010 album and singles. Moreover, Shady’s three wins on the MTV Video Music Awards are the biggest haul at that present by any of our contenders.And now, the second we’ve all been ready for: the official coronation of the King of Hip-Hop.Associated • The five hundred Best Albums of All Time: Jay-Z’s ‘The Blueprint’MASTER RANKINGSo right here we’re on the ultimate showdown, able to mash up all of our information right into a grasp checklist and crown a winner.Along with his dominant album gross sales, YouTube views and social-media scores, Eminem takes the title as the present King of Hip-Hop.In contrast to our Queen of Pop rating, which Girl Gaga took in a stroll, Marshall Mathers’s win was considerably nearer – be aware the pretty tight level vary amongst our high three.If third-place Drake’s commanding lead on the tune charts had been much more dominant (which is tough to think about), he might properly have taken the title – a large upset contemplating the brevity of his rap profession. As it’s, Drake’s robust end, greater than 200 factors above now-veteran Kanye West, is a testomony to his present omnipresence. Along with his second album due later this yr, he’s received a shot at stealing the title by 2012.Talking of omnipresence, Lil Wayne takes second place by means of sheer work ethic, due to a continuing stream of releases that even jail couldn’t sluggish. His common look in our runner-up slot – he made Quantity Two in albums, songs, the net rankings and awards – made him the runner-up general, and his staggering dwell grosses virtually put him over. If we’d achieved this survey only one yr in the past and included information from 2008, Weezy would have taken the title, indisputably.However once more, timing is every thing: Positive, if we’d achieved an analogous three-year survey of rappers again in 2002 or 2005, Eminem would have received, in all probability. However as lately as three years in the past, Eminem successful a survey like this was unthinkable; his almost half-decade hiatus from recording made any comeback unlikely, not to mention one during which he took again the charts as if he’d by no means left.Within the yr to come back, Drake is unquestionably the performer to observe. However so are our fourth- and fifth-ranked contenders, who, in a Voltron-like act of energy consolidation, could also be about to put waste to our high three. If Kanye’s and Jay-Z’s Watch the Throne is as huge a launch as anticipated – not simply this week, however deep into the autumn, adopted by a world-beating tour – subsequent yr presently these two buddies and veterans could also be yanking the crown off Slim Shady’s head.Associated • The 100 Best Artists of All Time: Eminem • Life on Planet Wayne: Rolling Stone’s 2009 Lil Wayne Cowl Story • Lil Wayne: A Historical past in Pictures • The 30 Greatest Albums of 2010: Drake’s ‘Thank Me Later’ • Pictures: Kanye West’s Profession Highs – And Lows • The 30 Greatest Albums of 2010: Kanye West’s ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ • The five hundred Best Albums of All Time: Jay-Z’s ‘The Blueprint’ • The 30 Greatest Albums of 2010: Rick Ross’ ‘Teflon Don’ • What Does Gucci Mane’s Ice Cream Cone Tattoo Imply? • Diddy Brings Nostalgia Again to New York • The Hottest Breakout Stars of 2011: Wiz Khalifa • The 50 Greatest Songs of 2010: B.oB. feat. Bruno Mars’ ‘Nothing on You’ • Evaluation: Waka Flocka Flame’s ‘Flockaveli’ • Lupe Fiasco Goes Head-to-Head With Invoice O’Reilly • The 30 Greatest Albums of 2010: Massive Boi’s ‘Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty’Read more: The ones who stay and fight summary