Anyone have opinions on who the most clever lyricists are in rap and hip-hop?
I’m a little bit of a language geek, and I love artists who are good with word-play and clever rhyme schemes. I’d like to expand my meager collection, any suggestions? They don’t have to be current artists.
The only discs I have are by Mos Def, Eminem, Snoop, and Ludacris, all of which I really like.
Thanks!
MF Doom.
This rhyme flow take practice like Tae Bo With Billy Blanks
“Oh, you’re too kind!” “Really? Thanks.”
To the gone and lost forever like “O My Darling Clementine”
He hold his heart when he tellin’ rhymes
When it’s his time, I hope his soul go to Heaven
He’s nasty like the old time Old Number Seven
Seriously, just close the thread now. 
Rakim is one of the best lyricists in hip-hop history, as is Chuck D of Public Enemy. I also really like Andre 3000 and Big Boi, collectively known as Outkast. Aquemini is my favorite Outkast album, but they have a greatest hits compilation you probably can’t go wrong with.
The late Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIG usually make people’s lists of best lyricists, but I admit not being the hugest fan of either gentleman (although I only know their big hit singles).
And for sheer cleverness and wordplay, there’s really nobody out there that tops Lil’ Wayne right now. Check out Da Drought 3, which is a two-disc free download online.
Well, she’s specifically asking for the most clever emcees and those that engage in the best wordplay rather than just who’s “best.” I mean, Rakim would easily be on a top-30 best rappers list, but he was never particularly clever or indulgent when it came to wordplay.
Any suggestions on where to find it? Googling the obvious brings up a slew of lyrics pages and sites that offer to sell the download for three or four bucks, and pages that mention it. I found one download site, but couldn’t get the download to function, because it was blocked on their site by something called “link-protector.com”.
I’m not big on rap, but if there’s a more creative couplet than “I ain’t a killer but don’t push me/revenge is like the sweetest joy next to gettin pussy” I haven’t heard it. 
Not many people no of him, but Iron Solomon is a VERY talented lyricist who has made fame as a battle MC.
Iron Solomon vs. Jin (Jin won MTV’s 106 & Park freestyle contest back in the day)
Iron’s lyricism is even better in his battle vs. MATH on the SMACK DVD.
If I could find any of his music on CD, I’d pick it up in a heartbeat.
Once again I find myself thinking that these examples must suffer without the gut-rattling thump and callipygian burlesque, because they really don’t strike me as that masterful on the page. TLDR’s cite isn’t bad, but it’s obviously more of an effort to string words (and pop-culture references) together that happen to rhyme, rather than to get across something coherent. And this:
does not—unless the artiste is a pioneer in the field of modern pronunciation or has a severe speech impediment—even rhyme. (Which isn’t mandatory, of course, but I personally require a little more before I go moony-eyed over someone’s facility with language.)
Depends on how closely you want to stick to the traditional definition of rap, but MC Paul Barman is a Jewish rapper who’s pretty damn clever at times.
“My dandy voice makes the most anti-choice
Granny’s panties moist”
“Your talents are bite-sized
It’s no surprise you rhyme with white guys.”
I’ll try to grab more later, but I can’t dig them up right now. He’s pretty funny, though.
I like MC Paul Barman too, and he is pretty clever. Kind of like a geekier, more awkward, less offensive version of Eminem. Of course, the cool thing to do is to hate “nerdcore” rappers like him, but he is amusing.
The Wu-Tang Clan.
End of discussion.
If we are speaking stictly clever lyrics, I will say that Method Man was the best at that in the Wu Clan… My favorite Wu artists are Ghostface for storytelling and Rza for just raw ability, not that anyone asked. But none of them are the best in the biz when it comes to ‘clever wordplay’ in my opinion.
MF Doom is quite freakin’ clever. Rakim is the god of clever wordplay. Special Ed was quite nice with a clever turn of phrase. Cannibus is a genius at it. Biggie was nice with it, Tupac, not so much.
I’m gonna assume that any mention of Lil’ Wayne is placed here just break my heart, so I am gonna pretend no one mentioned him. He is not in my top 200 list of hip-hop artists. Literally.
Ooo, oo, what about Lil’ John? He was clever! He wrote that song with all those words! …oh wait. I guess it only had those two words. One of 'em was “yeah.” Put him at the top of my list.
Del tha Funkee Homosapien (Deltron 3030):
“My production model is the stuff to boggle minds
You got a logon time of exactly thirty-six nanoseconds
Ambidextrious with ambience
Watch the can is twist while I lockout my hardware
Word warfare logistically locate and process
With psychotropics to optimize my profits
Envelop you with development kits that help me
To embelish the elements dynamic and to intelligence”
Canibus:
“Sittin’ on chrome,
sittin’ on low pro twenty inch Firestones,
grippin the road with the wickedest flow.
'Bis is a pro. I zig-zag through a sly loam,
accelerate and decelerate in and out the cones.
Poisonous poems
travel through walkman headphones
into your dome, osteoporosis your bones.”
And some of the nerdiest rap I have heard, courtesy of Monzy:
“My flow is so intense that I will overflow your buffer,
Corrupt your stack pointer makin’ all your data suffer.
I’ve got saturated edges but your flow is sparser,
Real gangstas sip on Yacc; instead you generate a parser.
While you’re busy poppin’ stacks I’ll pop a cap in your skull,
While you smoke your crack pipe I’m gonna pipe you to /dev/null.
I may not have a label but I rap like a star;
I’m an unsigned long int and you’re an 8-bit char.”
Sage Francis can be brilliant
“Makeshift Patriot”
I’ve got exclusive, explicit images to present to impressionable American kids
And it’s time to show this world how big our edifice is!
That’s exactly what they attacked when a typically dark skinned Disney villain
Used civilians against civilians and charged the trojan horses into our buildings
Using commercial aviation as instruments of destruction
Pregnant women couldn’t protect their children
Wheelchairs were stairway obstructions
Now I have to back petal…from the shower of glass and metal
Wondering how after it settles we’ll find who provided power to radical rebels
<snip>
Makeshift Patriot
The Flag Shop is Out of Stock
I hang myself
don’t waive your rights with your flags
I really think Eminem is way up there, honestly. He is a master wordsmith and I have mad respect for him, despite the fact that most of his fans seem to be in middle school.
I don’t have that bad of a mouth, do I?/Fuck, shit, ass, bitch, cunt, shoo-be-dee-doo-wop
Skippity bee-bop, a-Christopher Reeves, Sonny Bono, skis, horses and hittin’ some trees
Anyone who can use “a-Christopher Reeves” in a rhyme deserves major props. I like De La Soul, Jurrasic 5 and Outkast more in terms of beats and arrangements, but Eminem is really the only rapper who can consistently make me laugh. For that, he’ll always have a special place in my heart.
Some quick favorite lines of mine:
Big L- '98 Freestyle:
“…Put your jewels up, no fuck it put your honey up
Put your raggedy house up nigga, or shut your mouth up
before I buck lead, and make a lot of blood shed
Turn your tux red, I’m far from broke, got enough bread
And mad hoes, ask Beavis I get nuttin Butt-head”
Big L- Represent:
“Trash rappers I tax and spark
I be wettin niggaz up like water rides in Action Park
A nigga stuck me, and that ain’t funny son
So I got money Dunn, they wet him and his honey bun
Cause phony faggots I froze, it’s a fact
I flip fast on foes with fabulous fantastic flows
L is the rebel type, I’m rough as a metal pipe
Fuck a Benz, cause I could pull skins on a pedal-bike!
Props, I got the most, no MC comes close
Coast-to-coast, shows I host, foes I roast
Adios, I’m ghost” (+2 points for the Action Park reference)
Big Pun- Twinz:
“Everybody kiss the fuckin floor, Joey Crack, buck em all
If they move, Noodles shoot that fuckin whore
Dead in the middle of Little Italy little did we know
every riddled a middleman who didn’t´t do diddily”
Eminem- Rap Game
“You Cant tell me sh** about the tricks of this trade,
Switch blade with a little switch to switch blades
And switch from a 6 to a 16 inch blade,
The sh*ts like a samari sword, a censay,
Sh** just dont change ta this day,
Im this way still tell that ut-slay itch-bay,
uck-say my ick-day,
excuse my ig-pay atin-lay
but uck-fay the ig-pay”
Canibus- 4,3,2,1
Meth, where the Gods at? Redman, where the squad at? //
L, is that a mic on your arm? Let me borrow that //
Who’s the God of rap, you sayin’ is nice //
I beat a nigga to death, and beat a dead nigga to life //
When you look at me long enough, I start to read your thoughts //
If the signal was strong enough, and then I’ll call your bluff //
To see how many rhymes you got //
I could go on for more Millenias than Mazda’s got on a car lot //
Canibus- The C-quel:
[Overlapped lines from songs in the past]
(OVERLAP 1) “I’ll battle you on the net, I’ll battle you in the flesh I’ll battle you over the phone you can call me collect”
“Verbally viscious, telekenetically gifted, Took a minute to exhibit that I’m sick with it”
“Have you any idea what I’ll do to crews like you How many niggaz in my career I’ve ran through”
Canibus- Freestyles
”i speak at frenquencies dogs would have trouble hearing, canibus is the lyrical version of german engineering”
“i can double my density from 360 degree to 720 instantly 6 multiplied by 5 then 4 then 3 the 2 then 1, go ahead and calculate the sum”
Obligatory shilling for MC Frontalot:
Start Over (legal, free MP3)
(Lyrics)
wolves got it hard on this earth,
ever the subjects of defamation and mirth,
first in line to be out there, lurking,
eyeing engenues and smirking,
What?! - 20 posts in, and nobody has mentioned Kool Keith yet? Especially his Dr. Octagon project with Dan the Automator, but also the Cenobites, Black Elvis, Dr. Doom - and the things he did with Ultramagnetic MC’s.
First verse from Dr. Octagon’s Earth People:
First patient pull out the skull remove the cancer
Breakin’ his back chisel necks for the answer
Supersonic bionic robot voodoo power
Equator ex my chance to flex skills on Ampex
etc.
Among the great lyricists I would also rank Jeru the Damaja, Rakim, KRS-1, Raekwon (think Cuban Linx). There were more than these, of course, but with time I have forgotten their names… Maybe it’s time to fire up the 1210’s again…