Monday, August 15, 2011

Introducing the King of Hip-Hop



Kings Square Thumbnail
Now more than three decades old as a recorded medium, hip-hop is deeply embedded in popular culture – to the point where its stars seem not only larger than life but also, as Rick Ross once put it, "deeper than rap." But even as they sell out arenas and top the pop charts, rappers still court the respect and esteem of their hip-hop peers. The title King of Hip-Hop still means something.
In that spirit, just as we did in June with the Queen of Pop, we've crunched a pile of data to try to determine who is the current King of Hip-Hop.
We're not looking for the all-time greatest, although many of our contenders would vie for that crown. Some of them have only been recording a couple of years; others have been in the game since the 1990s. But that's what makes hip-hop exciting – it's plausible for someone 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 focused on the very recent past: from 2009 through the first seven months of 2011. We ranked 20 solo rappers (no groups – sorry, Beasties) who have dropped an album during that time. We looked at album sales, rankings on the R&B/hip-hop and rap charts, YouTube views, social media, concert grosses, industry awards and critics' ratings. In alphabetical order, our contenders are: Big Boi, B.o.B, Diddy, Drake, Eminem, Fabolous, Lupe Fiasco, Gucci Mane, Jay-Z, Kid 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 men except for Minaj, who reappears from our Queen of Pop survey. We like to think of "King" as a gender-neutral term, and the fact is that Minaj has earned the right to compete in this arena. It would feel strange to leave 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 guest appearances. Frankly, she deserves to be called a hip-hop king just for her giant-killing appearance on West's hit "Monster," in which she crushed West and fellow guests Rick Ross and Jay-Z with one blow.
Fans of the rappers, and the acts themselves, take these sorts of rankings pretty seriously. (We learned that firsthand in the comments section of Queens of Pop.) We stand by our data, but of course we know that no King of Hip-Hop index can capture swagger or flow – if it could, the all-time title might go to Q-Tip or Rakim. As you'll see, it turned out to be a fairly exciting contest. Our top overall contenders were pretty evenly matched, with five different rappers leading at least one tally each.
Let's start with the tally that comes with the biggest bragging rights: album sales.

9 pages of FACTS By ---> Rolling Stone

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

dumb ass.. your alphabetical order is off.....#fail

Anonymous said...

Dumb ass, the first letter of the last name its used.
smh

Anonymous said...

King is a MAN, now I know nicki looks like a man but she's not, there is no way king 'gender nutral' but if ur goin to put nicki in this where's kim? She has more record sales then nicki and more platinum records, just sayin

Yazzie said...

Since when did females reign as Kings? #DemandingQueenList

Anonymous said...

This is fucking stupid whoever posted this clearly knows nothing about hip-hop.bubble gum rapper Dick riding fags.

Anonymous said...

really? waka flocka? lol

Mista Biggs said...

honestly, this list is pretty retarded. most of the names up here, shouldn't be. I think Eminem and Lupe deserve the "title" over all these nidwits. And as for Nicki, Lil Kim keeps the queen of hip hop throne by default until a real contender pops up.

Anonymous said...

WHO MADE THIS LIST?? WHY NICKI RETARDED ASS ON THERE?? THEN KIM, MISSY, LAURYN SHOULD BE ON THEIR FOR THAT MATTER PLEASE RE-DO THIS WEAK ASS "LIST"

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