Leaders Of The New School, Hold the Dinco Brown please...

 As the months have progressed and my Best Best (word to Fela Kuti) of Saigon CD has gotten more rotation, I have come to the reluctant conclusion that perhaps our dear Brian may not be the best rapper of this generation. However, this is mostly due to no fault of his skill, but rather his incessant homophobia and violence which seem to pop up at the most pointless moments of other absolute lyrical brilliance. Now don't get me wrong, as an Illadelphian I am forever wedded to the ign'ance. It's just that at some point it all gets old when you know someone can flow so much mo forward thinking. With that on the table, I now present the only emcees who still truly keep me interested in the recorded craft of rapping. Those brothas who actually still put in the grind time woodsheding their craft to show and prove that emceeing ain't a lost art relegated to VH1 specials and street corner ciphers.

Joell Ortiz

I slept on Joell for quite a long time. I definitely wasn't feeling his name, subject matter, or flow during the initial innanet buzz phase. However, that all changed when I peeped the following:

I was most definitely taken aback by both the relatability and professionalism with which he parlayed his joys and pains. So I dug deeper. And I found out that bul really can get down. He can rap about the struggle with those intimate details Ice Cube used to throw in that betray the sensibilities of a novelist rather than a novice, while actually building his image around rapping rather than swagging.

Joe Budden

As an anti-hypnoholic, I resisted the clamor about Jumpoff Joey as long as I could. But online and in real life, Mood Muzik kept popping up as a seeming mantra for multisyllabic meanness. So a download the first installment and was rather underwhelmed. Yet then I took another chance and peeped Mood Muzik II. And lemme say, I've been an unashamed believer ever since. Perhaps more so than any other nationally known rapper today, Budden can write from all angles, never sounding off his pivot or out of his element in any way. Truly impressive and refreshing. Also, like Joell, he's unafraid to (and would have you believe repopularized) spit self-critically bout getting grown and getting focused.

Sha Stimuli

I have however been up on Sha. Not much to say bout this dude other than he's like a freakishly right splicing between Saigon, Jay-Z, Grafh, and a fifth element of unknown dopeness. Stimuli spits conscious without sounding contrived by embracing his contradictions as points of honesty rather than compromises of a static image. Although homie could try to throw his hooks a lil harder.

Vodka

Philly's best kept secret and my personal favorite rapper. This nigro is not playing. If you think you catch what he's saying, listen again. Then pause for a lil bit more and listen again. Then once you figure out the bars, go back and try to digest the flow. Unfuckwitable. The only problem is his atrociously irregular output of only one full-length album and a bunch of scattered DVD and radio show verses. Innanet A&Rs get on ya job!

2003:

2006:

(2007- incarceration intermission)

2008:

Loaded Lux

Beating Lux is practically impossible. Every line he delivers has at least two meanings and rolls with a ceaseless barrage of fury. His utter and absolute desecration of 106 & Park's Freestyle Friday may demonstrate his strengths, but by no means the true parameters of his talent. It's truly not fair, as evidenced by his unique claim to be the only New York dude, scratch that, rapper anywhere to scare battle scarred Philly rappers into submission. According to him, the only time you seen rap tours is in a dinosaur book. Dizam.

 much more to come on these young cannons... trust