The Most Legendary Rap Lyrics [of All Time]

Last week, we took a look at the fifty worst rap lyrics of all time. This week, we even things out by taking a look at the other end of the spectrum and examining rap lyrics to find cleverness and wordplay worthy of being praised. Selecting the very best lyrics from a library of oh so many is a tough task. Is technical skill the prime consideration? Poetic quality? Historical significance?

Keep reading for the full countdown to see which rhymes struck as some of the best of all time. Mos Def raises the stakes of this rhyme in the first line by presenting the challenges humanity faces in this day in age. He then best rap lyrics about friends name this with a commentary on the priorities of the day's youth, who are more concerned with video games best rap lyrics about friends name practical knowledge.

When combined, the gap between what we need and what he have is clear and startling. Wale is a cool cat, and his wordplay here is seamless. The image of a seamstress sitting at her machine, running through mundane line after line, just seems to fit with a mediocre rapper, so the simile is so apt.

And he makes it sound easy and fluent -- like a finger roll in basketball. It's tough to make it look so simple. The whole purpose of this song, as indicated in the title, is to honor memory and reminisce about a friend who's passed.

The story of how Troy and CL met may seem incidental, but it is those kinds of idiosyncratic specifics that make the story so genuine and the nostalgia so poignant. The best rap lyrics about friends name of the meeting story makes CL's thank-you to Troy that much more powerful.

Lauryn Hill gives a taste of her biting wit and humor, commenting on the state of music -- hip-hop in particular. It's a great line, because the "motherfucker" does stand best rap lyrics about friends name in Lauryn's otherwise clean verse; it perks you up, but she's still using the word in an enlightened manner, thus getting the point across without compromising the quality of her lyrics.

It's funny how it can be easier to talk to the world than to your own mother. Scarface's rap was his diary, and this song comes off his album named, that's right, The Diary. This line speaks to how important rap is -- how important any form of expression is -- to the artist as more than just a career or way to entertain. Some rappers pour their souls into best rap lyrics about friends name lyrics, and you can bet that a rapper like Scarface wouldn't dare use a potentially effeminate word like "diary" unless he was best rap lyrics about friends name just that.

This is personification at its best -- unexpected and complex. You would expect trouble to be uncaring and unkind, but K'naan presents trouble as a soothing figure. The inclusion of the word "overdose" also suggests that perhaps trouble is operating as a kind of drug, and K'naan is so accustomed to it that he goes into withdrawals without it. The assonant use of the hard "oh" vowel sound also gives this couplet a pained, longing feel.

You just stuck in a loop ". Hopsin calls into question the ideal of "realness" in hip-hop, which has long been affiliated with street cred. Hopsin turns best rap lyrics about friends name value on its head and likens those hustling in the drug game to hamsters stuck running nowhere in their wheel.

To be sure, the line is cruel and unsympathetic, best rap lyrics about friends name Hopsin's never been one for sparing feelings. And the truth hurts: The drug game has no winners. With this line, Run-D. They turned shoes into something more than the leather and rubber they're made from.

You get the sense that the shoes of Run-D. Shad's wordplay is so subtle, so effortless, you don't even realize he's best rap lyrics about friends name it at first, and when you do, you think back and say, "Damn, Shad. That was dope. Cole retroactively forgives those who would judge his music before even listening to him, thereby removing all power from potential haters.

Somewhat ironically, given his name, Masta Killa meditates on the difference between homicide and the death penalty, and implies that civic systems that practice the death penalty may be acting hypocritically.

Nobody can describe hopelessness like Cage can. How do you keep your head up figuratively when you can't even keep it up literally, and how do you keep yourself together when your body falls apart every time you try to stand? This is one of those lines that you have to hear to appreciate.

It's the kind of line that borders on narcissistic -- and Cudi is kind of a narcissistic guy -- but the personality with which he delivers the line makes it sound so genuine, and it comes off as more humble than anything.

You really feel as though he's made the song just for you. Unlike a lot of MCs who act tough in their raps, Prodigy gets very real very quick in a way that's brutal and shocking. Part of the power of the line comes from its brevity; it comes at you so fast, it hits you best rap lyrics about friends name a blow to the face.

And it's so easy to picture -- and that picture is not particularly pretty. Ren playfully but decisively inverts the relationship between police and the racial minorities by pointing out that, in his streets, the best rap lyrics about friends name is the majority and has strength in numbers.

Police may have the advantage most times, but not in his neck of the woods. Common explains the profound pain that went along best rap lyrics about friends name the decision to get an abortion. He contemplates the joy of raising a child, thinking about being responsible for another best rap lyrics about friends name, another mind and a path through which he could extend his own life, before ending abruptly with death.

An object is not simply a form, a collection of components. Its true value lies in what it can be used for and what it means to the people who use it. When your home burns down, you lose more than just a house; you lose your sense of security, belonging and whatever else comes with having a home.

For Jay Electronica, the radio is a tool with which he can reach millions of ears. The proliferation of his music isn't simply transmission of sound; it's his mode of expression, and, as the rest of this section of the song explains, a tool to teach and connect people.

Besides the impeccable sound of the second line, replete with assonance, consonance and internal half-rhyme, the desperate but pitch-black funny Vince Carter metaphor is so powerful. Earl speaks about trying to climb out of something dark, but the figurative weight of his best rap lyrics about friends name is keeping him down like Vince Carter's old knees Vince Carter could once fly like even Air Jordan couldn't.

Earl takes something very abstract and makes it very real and visceral. This line encapsulates the paranoia that informs the belief system of the revolutionary. Whether or not you believe Huey Newton was a good person is irrelevant to the tragedy of his death, given what he was trying to do and that he died at the hands of a rivaling revolutionary faction.

Lil Wayne is a master of surrealism, and "I Feel Like Dying" is one of the best examples of surrealism in rap. Wayne best rap lyrics about friends name his experience with drugs as if he's in a dream, and it all seems to make sense in both the literal and figurative senses, as it does in dreams. The line about wine is particularly resonant in that, when people fall into depression, they find comfort in the bottle.

The experience of drug-taking is rarely so vividly described, and nuanced both with the joy of experience and the despair of dependence. The word "ill" was invented for rhymes like these. The gist of what Cage is saying may be simple: I'll burn your house down and kill you. The way he says it is completely fresh, combining the two familiar idioms of pouring liquor out for the dead homies and a dead man walking, then coming full circle, telling you how you'll die with a dark and funny Talking Heads reference and a perfect rhyme.

Besides the content of these lines, which is powerfully descriptive, and the tone, which echoes the stress and frustration of the first few lines and the release of the last, the collage of sound that Eminem best rap lyrics about friends name, with alliteration, assonance and internal and multisyllabic rhyme, is impeccable. Most rappers can't rap with the conviction nor the technical skill that Eminem does, and Em pulls them both off at the same time.

Yeah, it's a simple line, but rolling like a g is a simple joy, and nobody has put it to music better than Snoop Dogg did here. Ahh shit! Big Daddy Kane beautifully illustrates the creative process and delivers the lines as if he's dictating what's happening as it occurs.

You can almost see the words floating around in the air, rearranging themselves until they make sense and culminate in indescribable epiphany. Ahh, shit! Ice Cube brilliantly reworks the idiom, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," as a critique of then president George H. Bush and government more best rap lyrics about friends name, including civil rights activist Jesse Jackson. When the law doesn't work in your favor, and your back is against the wall, it's easy to justify drug dealing as a means of survival a "bird" is slang for roughly 36 ounces of cocaine.

Ice Cube's wordplay is especially effective because his message also works in the context of the original idiom that it's better to use what you have rather than count on help that may never come. This is such an arresting image -- it makes no logical sense, but is somehow incredibly emotionally resonant. Maybe the red eyes draw the likeness to a demon.

Or maybe it's the pure suffering, which manages to reach near-Biblical proportions. We pity Raekwon's character in the most repulsed way, like a fallen angel.

Aesop takes one of the most treasured tropes in hip-hop and skillfully denies it by extending the metaphor of life as a woman and trading cynicism for wonderment. And not only does he reverse the perception of life, he puts a microscope on the word "bitch," suggesting that the label is less indicative of what's labeled and more the labeler's own insecurity. The first image in this rhyme is of Wayne floating beyond this world, seemingly without limits.

Then, immediately after, he cleverly uses the ironic slang term for Xanax pills bars to enrich his commentary about his relationship with the drug, as a prisoner.

The lack of a transition between these images suggests that best rap lyrics about friends name are happening concurrently. Wayne is on a trip, yet he's ultimately confined -- the tragedy of drug use.

Kendrick borrows biblical images of the apocalypse to give importance and immediacy to the words that follow: Stand for something, or die in the morning. He is symbolically suggesting that judgment is coming tomorrow and that only the righteous will be saved -- or perhaps he's implying that judgment comes each day and every day you don't stand for something, you're virtually dead.

By magnifying usually unnoticeable phenomenon like the sound of sweat trickling and a heart beating, Biggie suggests either that his foes are in a supernatural state of fear or that he's an extraordinary predator. Either way, it's pretty terrifying. I certainly wouldn't want to be his prey, and it's understandable why 2Pac flipped his wig after hearing this.

Blu is a true poet that doesn't need music to keep your attention. His words are laced with a kind of bohemian wisdom that inspires more questions than it can hope to answer, but the ride is nonetheless enlightening.

Here he wonders about a non-denominational heaven, and you can never quite tell if he interprets it literally or figuratively, which is probably purposeful and likely the most useful imagination. Our drives for best rap lyrics about friends name and violence can change the most fundamental parts about ourselves, and to characterize revenge as a sweet joy next only to sex makes it all the more menacing.

Believe it or not, Jay did best rap lyrics about friends name come up with this line.

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