ZIGGYBEATS said:
Had to have been a west coast dj lol. You’ll never find a good list this genres is just too subjective I agree the Message is def top 3.. I wouldn’t argue Rappers delight at #1 either as far as significance but nothing but a G-thang ? No wayyyy i’d put ATLiens before that one but I then again I prefer the dirty ...I bet if we made a top 10 anything they would be all over the place. I’ve seen some that have Pac at one another’s that don’t even have him in the top 10
I decided to make my own top list and heres what I come up with:
1. Rappers Delight (easy one, created rap music, can never be topped)
2. The Message (first track to ever bring reality into rap music, paved the way for so many rappers to talk about real life later on)
3/4. Juicy (not my favorite song by Mr. Wallace, but its hard to deny his most iconic)
California Love (again not my favorite, but his intro to Death Row and working with Dr Dre)
** I made these two 3a. and 3b. simply because both artists deserve the spot but depending on which "side" youre on you might rank one higher, Im a Biggie guy myself but cant say Tupac wasnt also legendary **
5. Walk This Way (as above, not even close to my favorite Run-DMC track, but it broke barriers between rock and hip hop)
6. Fight The Power (at the time it was unheard of the bring politics into music so strongly, ground-breaking)
7. Protect Ya Neck (introduced the world to a clique so large and dominant in the 90s, and included just about all of them)
8. Fight For Your Right (white guys can rap too...)
9. Push It (yes theres a breaking barriers theme here, lots of badass female rappers, but they dont exist without this track)
10. Nothin But A G' Thang (one of the greatest collabo's in hip hop history, Id contemplate Deep Cover here, but hard to deny this one)
Hard to make a top 10 since to make a truly historic list you need to bring it out to about 25 or so to include guys like Slick Rick, Eric B/Rakim, Nas, Eminem, Ice Cube (NWA in general), and all the outstanding "group songs" like the Symphony, Flava remix, Scenario, etc which combine so many greats into one song