Biggie vs Tupac

[FlyingJesus]

Most of his new stuff's about Africa, and I'm really not trying to be a music snob but if you don't know the classic Nas albums (or the fact that a heavy amount of rap is about how great the artist is ) you don't know enough of hiphop to make a general opinion. Like I say, I don't want to be a snob about it and certainly won't pretend to know everything about rap myself, I merely encourage you - and everyone else - to look into some more of the greats and even some not-so-greats to give yourself a wider range to explore

[RedStratocas]

In Nas's latest songs he only seems to go on about how great he is and the best rapper yet I haven't really heard any of his songs that supposedly got him to that status.

anything on illmatic, especially "life's a *****." illmatic is the ultimate display of flow, consciousness and raw energy displayed by any rapper ever, and even he hasnt been able to match it since.

the problem with comparing someone like nas or jay-z to tupac and biggie is that tupac and biggie both had quite a limited career span, while jay-z and nas are approaching their 20th year in the game and are still going, to debatable effect. if both tupac and biggie were still alive, this debate would probably be much different because we would know where their careers would have gone, its possible both of them would have turned to garbage after 1996. but since they died, they didnt even really have a chance to come back and disappoint as hova and nas have at various times. if jay z were to have died at a valuable point in his career (lets say after the original blueprint), itd be pretty hard to argue against him being the greatest rapper ever, since he was coming out every year with a fantastic record. but last decade was filled with ups and downs for both jay and nas, and their failures take away from their successes. basically, how it seems to work is: if one rapper has one album that is perfect, and a different rapper has three albums, two of which are perfect and one is just mediocre, the rapper with only one perfect album is perceived as better. i think it seems unfair but thats really how it goes.

[Swastika]

Very hard decision, i don't think either one of them were better than other - it's like asking who's better? The Rock or Steve Austin?
If you know what i mean..

I personally listen to them both, but i'd have to pick tupac - some of his lyrics are just amazing.

[Misawa]

I despise rap, so neither I'm afraid.

[FlyingJesus]

Yeah Nastradamus did him no favours haha but other than that Nas is pretty much fire his entire career, although I've not heard much off Distant Relatives I must admit, so that might be crap and prove me wrong. Dying definitely seems to help a music career - Jay even attempted to make it look like he was dead for a while after Black Album - but to be fair both Big and Pac were already huge in life. You could argue that they'd have fallen off eventually like a lot of rappers do (BP3? 'nuff said) but similarly one or both of them could have been like Wu Tang Clan and kept putting out killer collabs and solo albums for years and years... but probably not.

On the point of Life's A *****, totally agree that it's an incredible track but the ultimate display of flow, consciousness and raw energy comes from AZ on it in my view, his verse is still my favourite rap verse not written by me

[The Don]

Eminems the best rapper imo lol but then again i don't listen to loads of rap so go easy on me