YEP. I am at it again, bringing you your favorite rapper's favorite rapper. This time, its saigon. Saigon got some buzz in 2007 with his single "c'mon baby", the remix also featured jay.
So check out his top five dead or alive.
Yes your favorite rapper's favorite column is back. TOP 5 DEAD OR ALIVE is hotter on the streets than Obama election bus trips.
This week we stepped to New York hard rock Saigon. Drama with punching rappers at their own shows and record label problems aside, Sai' knows his Hip-Hop. So much so he delivers a lengthy and probably the most insightful TOP 5 edition to date. Let's go.
2Pac
Saigon: I know this is so cliché, I have to say 2Pac. The reason I say that is first of all he was a beast. His productivity level was insane. He wasn’t even home a year, and when he died he had over two hundred something songs done, not verses but songs. So if a song is three verses, that’s like over six hundred verses in less than a year and they weren’t wack. They were dope rhymes.
He had social messages in his lyrics, he could do songs for the females, songs for the clubs, introspective songs that made you think. He never seemed like he was ever out of his lane. A lot of people say he contradicted himself, but you got to understand that humans are multi dimensional people. We’ll never feel one way every day.
I like The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory album best. I think that’s when he showed when he was lyrical as well. A lot of times people gave him slack and that he wasn’t that lyrical. From his delivery to his image, he is the most cloned artist in Hip-Hop.
[On the commentary of being cliché that comes along with choosing 2Pac]
That choice is personal to me because I feel I’m an artist in that same vein. One second I’ll talk about putting a hole in you and the next second I’ll make a song about brothers needing to put the guns down. It’s like looking at Malcolm X. The most famous picture of Malcolm X is where he is holding an AK47. That goes to show you that he was a righteous man but he wasn’t a sucker, he felt he had a right to bear arms and protect his family by any means. So I say if you are not looking at 2Pac as a rapper, he is the closest thing to Malcolm X we have ever had.
Jay-Z
Saigon: I say Hov because of his consistency, his wordplay is crazy. His flow is so crazy, it transcended into him being so powerful. Lyrically I f*** with Jay the most on Reasonable Doubt; some dudes are saying that it didn’t feel like a monster album when it came out, but you got to remember he was on Priority [Records] at the time. When it first dropped, people weren’t shouting out classic, but it was one of those albums you had to keep listening to really understand it.
I didn’t get the album right away, but when I did sit down and rewind it, I knew it was phenomenal. Lyrically you had songs like “D’Evils”, and “Can I Live?” Like you had lines like “I keep one eye open like CBS”, he had some classic sh*t on there. To me that’s his best lyrical body of work. Overall I would say The Blueprint.
As far his influence on the culture, I’ve never seen somebody turn fans off and on so fast with one rhyme. Jay-Z can say it’s not cool to wear tight pants any more, and everyone is going to go back to the baggy jeans. He shut down throwback jerseys. Dudes were paying five hundred dollars for throwback jerseys. I know dudes who got twenty thousand dollars worth of throwbacks and one Jay-Z verse killed that entire trend.
Nas
Saigon: I’m going to have to go with my man Esco. I know everyone’s list be looking the same but you can’t leave these dudes out. But look at this guy’s body of work man. He probably had two so-so albums that weren’t that great beat wise; that would be Nastradamus and I Am. His only problem with him to me is his choice of beats but lyrically he’s never lost his step ever!
I’ve never heard a more vivid story rhyme than “Rewind”. He told a rhyme backwards and it was so vivid the song was its' own video. You don’t even have to put a visual to it, because you see it when he says it. Like the song he had “I Gave You Power”, the way he did it was crazy; even though that concept came from Pharaoh Monch. All the songs he did with DJ Premier. He’s got a classic, classic, classic catalog.
With New York Hip-Hop, aside from all the marketing and promotion, when it comes to raw talent he’s unmatched and we saw that with “Ether”. People will trash him for how he dresses or who he married, but when we talk about him being an MC, you can’t take anything away from that dude.
[In response to his claims of Nas being unmatched lyrically and how Nas compares to Eminem]
I think Nas is better than Eminem. There’s a lot of stuff Em’ made I didn’t like. Em’ has more stuff I didn’t like than Nas. Em’ is very very very nice with his words, his vocabulary is very extensive. He can put words together like no other, his wordplay is crazy but his content is not there for me. I can relate to Nas more content wise, that’s why I wouldn’t put Em’ on my top five.
[In regards to his favorite Nas album]
I would say a tie between Illmatic and It Was Written. People forget about It Was Written, the records he had on there were phenomenal. There were so many classic songs from there. He probably had one bad record on there and that was “Nas Is Coming”; that was the only record on that album that I didn’t f*** with. Nas got three classics, those two and Stillmatic.
Ice Cube
Saigon: I am going to have to say Ice Cube. Ice Cube was the main rapper in N.W.A. He wrote all of Eazy’s sh*t; the only one helped him a little was MC Ren. But all those dope N.W.A albums and all of Eazy’s stuff, Ice Cube was writing that sh*t. So he was the ghostwriter supreme and then when he went solo, he got even better. Amerikkkas Most Wanted and Death Certificate are both classics. He was able to have a message in his sh*t and still do that gangster sh*t. It was similar to what 2Pac was doing but Ice Cube’s stuff was rawer.
Also “No Vaseline” it was one man versus a whole crew. With one verse he shut N.W.A. down, that’s huge. He also did “Jackin 4 Beats” and now everyone is using everybody’s beats for so called freestyles. He's also an established actor and is still putting out dope albums and he has twenty years in; just an incredible rapper overall.
LL Cool J
Saigon: That would have to go to LL Cool J. The reason I have LL Cool J, is because he has always been dope on the rhymes since Radio. You got to think that this dude came in the 80’s; he’s got twenty years in this game. He can make the braggadocio records like “I’m Bad”, he’s never made no gangster sh*t but he did the “I’m the nicest rapper”, he ended a few careers and no one can f*** with him on making records for the females.
He excels on the acting and still to this day he is still relevant twenty years later. You know how many dudes he’s seen come and go in his career? He is always putting out dope records. You might not be able to count on LL to have a hot album, but you can count on LL to make some hot records. If we are talking overall, LL needs to be on the list. There aren’t a lot of rappers with fifteen or more classic songs.
[In regards to LL’s battle with Canibus]
I think Canibus bodied him in that battle [laughing]. That battle was one sided, it wasn’t even a fair fight. Canibus shot himself in the foot with that album though, the fact that album wasn’t that hot. LL is definitely in my top five list, but he took L there with Canibus. He lost that battle but won the war.
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