Black Thought has revealed his personal top five list of rappers, acknowledging the greats who influenced and paved the way for himself and others. While promoting his new book, The Upcycled Self: A Memoir on the Art of Becoming Who We Are, the Philly native spoke with HipHopDX about the emcees that he holds in the highest esteem and helped inform his art own “foundation” as a wordsmith.
In no particular order, Black Thought named Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, Chuck D, and LL Cool J as the rap artists that comprise his top five list, explaining his reasoning behind each selection. “I could kick Kool G Rap’s rhymes, from ‘Poison’ or ‘Men at Work’ or ‘Road To Riches’ forever — and these are songs that are already 35 years old,” he said, deeming the Queens native’s lyricism as “timeless.”
Crediting Big Daddy Kane and Rakim for their technical precision and style points, Black Thought praised their “Shakespearean approach” to creating music. “Big Daddy Kane was far more stylistic than technical, or just as stylistic as he was technical, and he was smooth, right? He was a smooth operator,” the Roots member explained. “What both Kane and G Rap, and also Rakim, brought to the table was a different cadence that we hadn’t heard before.”
The Glorious Game creator rounded out his list by saluting Chuck D’s role as sociopolitical minded emcee with a voice and perspective wise beyond his years. “Chuck was all activist, right?” Black Thought said of the Public Enemy frontman. “His last concern was cadence and flow. He was just more about getting you the information, being on beat, grabbing your attention, smacking you saying: ‘Wake the f**k up.’ And that was a brave, again, stylistic decision to make at the time.”
According to the 52-year-old, LL Cool J’s initial impact was in large part to their proximity in age, but has since evolved into a mutual respect, as the pair toured together this past summer. “We were able to again, see just that representation — to see ourselves in somebody so young, who was in such a position of power and who was moving almost, you know, regally, like in regal grace,” he said of the rap legend. “LL was the royal chief rocker but he was 16 years old, and he moved like a season veteran.”
Read the rest of Black Thought’s explanation of his top five rappers list here.
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