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Race Warz Loosie grades the rappers from each ethnic group, with unsurprising results. When Dubya’s father was in office, attacking Hip-Hop was the easiest way to get the support of fearful Reagan Democrats and cowering suburbanites. Bill Clinton went after Sista Souljah, Dan Quayle insulted Tupac and everyone else was busy peeing in their trousers about Ice-T’s “Cop Killer” jammy. Sorry, fuckers, Hip-Hop not only endured, it won. Big. Now bald middle-aged white guys can’t even return home after a long day at the mackerel cannery to watch a sporting event without being subjected to the prancing Black Eyed Peas, kick-snare Sprite commercials and NBC playing De La Soul at the halftime of the Pistons-Lakers Kobe-humiliation extravaganza. Now that we all have Elephunk lyrics tatted on our bellies, let’s take a brief moment to rank the contributions of rappers from America’s most populous ethnic groups.
This is a pure formality. Blacks are the Dream Team and everyone else is Angola. Granted, inventing the shit gave them an unfair head start. There’s nothing else to say here, except that their tenth stringers could give any other group a run for their money. The Whites Those crafty Whites have had their noses in Hip-Hop since almost day one, whether it was copping Kurtis Blow albums, making crappy breakdancing movies or owning record labels. From an artistic standpoint, they’ve really got two big dogs, Em and the Beasties. Both have the respect of their peers (no Benzino) and sell boatloads of records. But since El-P, Everlast, MCA and ‘em are considered “alternative Hip-Hop” (an artsy medium reserved for White rappers sans Fubu), Em is the only White all-star actually competing for real. To his credit, Slim joins Big Pun as the only non-Black to ever achieve “arguably the nicest out there” status, which is no small feat. There’s also the subset of Jews to consider (Beasties, Serch, Non-Phixon, Necro, every guy with “silver” somewhere in his last name that founded a small Hip-Hop label). Shit, Danny Hoch is a Hip-Hop Jew who kind of raps, sort of. Honorable mentions to Brother Ali, Edan, Aesop Rock, Icy Blu, Vanilla Ice, that guy who made a song about Vanilla Ice melting, Bubba Sparxxx, Brian Austin Green, Evidence, Marky Mark, the crying homo from “Making the Band”, Kain, Cage, Copywrite, JoJo Pelligrino, Bas Blasta, White Dawg, Mad Flava, Princess Superstar, Haystack, Young Black Teenagers, Mr. Eon, Crustified Dibs AKA RA The Rugged Man, Sage Francis, those Anticon fuckers, Grouch, LMNO, Eyedea, Slug, Big Dru Ha (the Ill Caucasian), Milkbone, Ali-D, Chilly-T, Knuckleheadz, The Whooligans, ADOR, Remedy and the white dude from Mo Thugz. The Spaniards If we were to include headspinning B-Boys and MTA-fleeing Graf artists, Latinos would come in second in our rankings. But this is purely based on quality of rappers – and with only Pun a member of the elite class – we say they get edged out by the Whites. We like Fat Joe as a beefy and threatening Rucker coach, but he’s never been much of a wordsmith. Even with Pun writing for him, the echoes of “niggas know the time, niggas know the deal, niggas know that nigga Fat Joe is mad real” have never completely stopped bouncing around our respective coconuts. B-Real had his moments – remember when the Hit Squad would cluster around him with tape recorders, ready to sample his every word for hooks? Overall, considering their exposure to Hip-Hop goes all the way back to the Bronx River era, there have been surprisingly few dope Vato rappers. Blame the language barrier or some shit. Honorable mentions to Agallah, Kid Frost, the Spanish kid from Killarmy, the Spanish kid from State Property, Deliquent Habits, Gerardo, Triple Seis, Cuban Link, Armageddon, Prospect, AL Skillz, Pumpkinhead, Tony Touch, Q Unique, Pitbull, Immortal Technique, D-Stoy, some guy from Natural Elements, South Park Mexican, 2Mex, Grouch and, everyone’s favorite, A Lighter Shade of Brown. The Asians Thus far, the Asians have had difficulty cracking the rapper ranks. Even though they swashbuckled through the turntablist circuit like Cambodian pirates, they’ve yet to have an artist considered “great”, “stellar” or “wicked awesome”. Not only are Asians a significantly smaller percentage of the population than Blacks, Whites or Latinos, they are also victimized by the media’s portrayal as Asian males as asexual bookworms and frequently viewed by the Hip-Hop community as more likely to slang Moo Goo Gai Pan from behind bulletproof glass than drop a nasty verse. Still, tread lightly when insulting the Afro-centric Asians – because the Boo Ya Tribe will fucking kill you. Honorable mention to G-Kay, the Ghost Shadow-turned-rapper who shot Jin’s boy and now is on the run (possibly eating). Read more articles in Arts » |
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