Music Notes | BET’s (…Yeah) Top 10 Rappers of the 21st Century

Like many hip hop fans, I skeptically tuned in to BET‘s “Top 10 Rappers of the 21st Century” special. While one of my tweeps pointed out that the century is no where near over, I excused BET for this as even I do not know how to refer to the last decade (um, the oughts?).

BET assembled an esteemed panel of hip hop heads to determine the real shakers and bakers of the last decade. Though I only recognized about half of these people, I trusted them for reasons unknown to me and as I would quickly discover, against my better judgement. BET’s own Big Tigger (you may also remember him from his verse on R. Kelly‘s “Snake”) led the discussion with his signature joviality.

Tigger noted that the group would be using a preset criteria to gauge which artists should make the list. Commercial success, cultural influence, lyrical content, flow and social media presence were among the criteria for which the artists would be measured. (Did they say sales? Well, I guess that that weeds out the Lupe Fiasco types.)

I tuned in a bit late but it wasn’t long before they started dropping bombs over the Baghdad that is me. Where do I begin going in?

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