{"id":292,"date":"2004-03-20T16:16:08","date_gmt":"2004-03-20T20:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tradermike.net\/movethecrowd\/2004\/03\/kool_mo_dees_new_book_ranks_the_50_greatest_mcs\/"},"modified":"2004-03-20T16:16:08","modified_gmt":"2004-03-20T20:16:08","slug":"kool_mo_dees_new_book_ranks_the_50_greatest_mcs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2004\/03\/20\/kool_mo_dees_new_book_ranks_the_50_greatest_mcs\/","title":{"rendered":"Kool Mo Dee’s New Book Ranks the 50 Greatest MCs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let the greatest MC argument begin anew. Kool Mo Dee was on Tavis Smiley’s show last night promoting his new book, There’s a God on the Mic: The True 50 Greatest MCs<\/a>. It seems that Mo Dee, like many of us, was moved to make his own list after seeing the list that MTV put together last year. ( Here’s my list if you haven’t seen it yet<\/a>. ) Here’s the description of his book:<\/p>\n

\nRapper Kool Mo Dee thrived during hip-hop\u2019s nascent years as a vocalist whose tongue-twisting rhymes and speedy delivery put his counterparts to shame. On his 1987 album, How Ya Like Me Now, Kool came up with a \u2018hip-hop report card\u2019: a method of rating MCs (Emcees, Masters of Ceremonies, Master Communicators, or rap vocalists) as a way of separating the premier MCs from their often one-dimensional, overrated counterparts (“Sucka MCs”). Building on this original list, Kool has put together an extensive rating system to compile the definitive list of the greatest MCs of all time. Kool rates each MC based on seventeen different categories, ranging from the artist\u2019s lyricism, vocabulary, and freestyling ability to his longevity, body of work, and social impact. Each artist is given a numerical score from one to ten in each of the seventeen categories, as well as an explanation for how this rating was determined. The book includes a complete discography and full-color photograph for each MC, and will also have supplemental lists, such as the top ten storytellers and top ten rhymers.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It definitely seems worth a read and the categorical ranking is a nice touch. There’s so much to consider when judging such a subjective thing, so no doubt his list will prove to be just as controversial as every other list. He did reveal his top 5 on Tavis’ show (Update:<\/b> I now know his top 10 thanks to Trent<\/a>):<\/p>\n


    \n
  1. Melle Mel<\/LI>
    \n
  2. Rakim<\/LI>
    \n
  3. KRS-ONE<\/LI>
    \n
  4. Big Daddy Kane<\/LI>
    \n
  5. Kool Mo Dee<\/LI>
    \n
  6. Grandmaster Caz<\/LI>
    \n
  7. LL Cool J<\/LI>
    \n
  8. Chuck D<\/LI>
    \n
  9. Notorious B.I.G.<\/LI>
    \n
  10. Lauryn Hill<\/LI>
    \n<\/OL><\/p>\n

    He also let it slip that he ranked Biggie at #9 and Tupac at #13. In what I consider an odd step, he left Eminem, DMX and Canibus off of the list because their body of work isn’t large enough. Well if Biggie’s body of work is large enough for a ranking surely DMX and Eminem qualify to be ranked. Anyway, I had to crack a smile at Tupac’s ranking. I have Tupac ranked #12 on my list and I’ve been fighting with Tupac fans over that ever since I posted my list back in June. (See the comments on the copy of my list that I posted over at BlogCritics<\/a>) Mo Dee can now have the joy of dealing with those Pac fanatics. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

    Hopefully somebody will post his entire list so we can proceed to critique it.
    \n<\/p>\n


    \n\"Napster<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Let the greatest MC argument begin anew. Kool Mo Dee was on Tavis Smiley’s show last night promoting his new book, There’s a God on the Mic: The True 50 Greatest MCs. It seems that Mo Dee, like many of us, was moved to make his own list after seeing the list that MTV put… Continue reading Kool Mo Dee’s New Book Ranks the 50 Greatest MCs<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":464,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2005\/05\/01\/dvd_freestyle_-_the_art_of_rhyme\/","url_meta":{"origin":292,"position":0},"title":"DVD: Freestyle – The Art of Rhyme","date":"May 1, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm really looking forward to this DVD being released later this month: \"Freestyle - The Art of Rhyme\" (You can watch the trailer on that site.) The film has taken a gang of awards at various film festivals, so it shouldn't disappoint. Explosively documenting the story of a group of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2003\/06\/23\/22_greatest_mcs\/","url_meta":{"origin":292,"position":1},"title":"22 Greatest MCs","date":"June 23, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Anyone catch MTV's 22 Greatest MC show? The moment they announced number 22 I knew we were gonna have beef. Their list was the result of a public poll, so I have to give a little slack given all the youngsters that likely voted. (Learn your history!) 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I guess I'm just too damn old to keep up or the voters for this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","img":{"alt_text":"Shop at Amazon.com","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rcm-images.amazon.com\/images\/G\/01\/rcm\/468x240.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":138,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2003\/08\/07\/10000_hits\/","url_meta":{"origin":292,"position":3},"title":"10,000 Hits","date":"August 7, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"I just passed 10,000 hits (actually visits... hits are a bit higher) on this blog. I'm surprised that it reached that level so fast because my other blog, Trader Mike, is almost 3 months older but only has 5,600 hits so far. I wish I could say this blog has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":361,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2004\/07\/23\/diggin_in_the_crates_some_brazilian_music\/","url_meta":{"origin":292,"position":4},"title":"Diggin’ in the Crates: Some Brazilian Music","date":"July 23, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm finally getting around to doing the Radio.Blog post I got inspired to do back when I wrote about the Brazilian music guides. There's a variety of styles here from: Samba Reggae, MPB (Brazilian Popular Music), Ax\u00e9, Samba, Hip Hop, and a little Bossa Nova. 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Read it to find out: why crack is responsible for hip-hop if ?uest is 'dried out' on hip-hop why he keeps buying the same records multiple times\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","img":{"alt_text":"Shop at Amazon.com","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rcm-images.amazon.com\/images\/G\/01\/rcm\/468x240.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}