Good guest artists are the bee’s knees. To inaugurate the blog I’d thought I’d share some of my favorites. This isn’t a definitive list or something, just ones I like a lot going through the stuff I’ve heard. And hey, it turned out to be a nice round number. I also limited it to one per featured artist. Sorry in advance for the abundance of Wu-Tang.
Scoob Lover on On the Bugged Tip (1988)
“I got the hm, hiccups, excuse me, sorry / score a hundred Gs every time I play Atari / put a hole in a Old Gold, blast the Bacardi / on the dance floor hype moves I be freakin”
And then he return to the ar/y scheme two bars later. One of the freshest joints from probably my favorite album of the 80s. Scoob’s high voice and general nuttiness tickle my fancy; he pulls off King Asiatic’s ghostwriting way better than Biz Markie ever did. That subset of the Juice Crew has some odd cats. Anyway this always felt like one verse split into a few parts to me, but I guess if I had to choose the second is my favorite.
Ice Cube on The Grand Finale (1989)
“because I’m gone, you think I left you all / but I stay on your ass like cholestrial / when I blast I’m solid as Alcatraz / and if you escape you better swim fast”
Now I know how that beef between Dre and Cube really started, homie was pissed he just got a tepid “yeah that was funky” after goin in like that. Cube was probably the first rapper I got really into once I started listening to hip-hop more intensively, starting with Straight Outta Compton and then his first two solo albums. I didn’t hear No One Can Do It Better until a minute later so it was kind of a nostalgic reminder that I shouldn’t forget about him. Imagine how I feel going back to it now.
Monie Love on Ladies First (1989)
“merrily merrily merrily merrily hyper happy overjoyed / pleased with all the beats and rhymes my sisters have employed / slick and smooth throwin down the sound totally a yes / let me state the position, ladies first, yes? [yes]”
Someone needs to make an LP of that merrily shit on repeat. I was super impressed by Latifah’s rhymes throughout this album (e.g. freestyle / see smiles, own two / won’t do on here), but she never touched Monie’s flow. Other than spelling out her name and whatnot, Monie’s part also strikes me as remarkably ageless, shit’s still bangin and not in the way KRS-One is still bangin where it feels decidedly different than what you’d call bangin nowadays. I’ve gotta check out Down to Earth. Also same as with Scoob goes for the verses; tougher choice but if it’s needed I’ll go for the first.
Nas on Live at the Barbeque (1991)
“stampede the stage, I leave the microphone split / play Mr. Toughy while I’m on some pretty tone shit / verbal assassin, my architect pleases / when I was 12, I went to hell for snuffin Jesus”
There’s certainly lots of options, but for me it’s gotta be between this and Mo Money Mo Murder Mo Homicide. I opted for this first because I’ve already got one Nas/AZ collaboration on here, second cuz there’s something about the youth and excitement on this one that feels like lightning in a bottle. 26 flawless bars, gotta love it.
AZ on Life’s a Bitch (1994)
“visualizin the realism of life in actuality / fuck who’s the baddest a person’s status depends on salary / and my mentality is money-orientated / I’m destined to live the dream for all my peeps who never made it”
If you’re just gonna have one guest spot, make it count I guess. Poor slept on AZ (probably has something to do with him always seeming to end up with lousy beats; even Life’s a Bitch is probably the weakest Illmatic joint production-wise).
Ghostface Killah on Guillotine (Swordz) (1995)
“et cetera, damage any lame-ass competitor / who try to front, get broken in fast like leathers / whatever hot hardheads get shattered like mirrors / Baretta shots splatter your goose, scatter your feathers”
Aight, this was tough. I can’t even think “but on the other side of town it’s Tony” without getting the giggles, and that’s not even considering classics like Verbal Intercourse, Ice Cream, 4th Chamber, or Knuckleheadz. But I gotta go with Guillotine. Ton ain’t got the assurance of Clientele or Fishscale yet, but that rough-around-the-edges feel is part of what makes it. Every punchline, boast, and off-the-wall metaphor hits so hard without leaving space to catch your breath before the next one. It’s the ultimate (or should I say supreme) musical combo attack.
Method Man on Shadowboxin’ (1995)
“now everybody talkin bout they blastin, hmm / is you bustin still or is you flashin? hmm / talking out yo asshole / you shoulda learnt about the flow and peasy afro”
Meth’s verses are consistently great, but nothing I’ve heard touches his work on this in terms of combining that flow with god-tier lyricism. There’s distinctly two on here, so I’ll opt for the first, but it’s not a big gap in quality. Also worth noting is, I believe, the inception of steez.
Inspectah Deck on Assassination Day (1996)
“crunch time in the first quarter, from the worst slaughter / there was poison in the birth water / the earth daughter rest her head on my chest / through the struggle, we cuddle under half-moon crests”
(That second line might also be “devils poisonin the birth water.”) I haven’t heard any of Deck’s solo albums, but I’d imagine they get kind of monotonous, since all his verses I have heard are kind of about the same thing. In small doses though, he’s practically unbeatable. His opener on Triumph is the stuff of legends, and Guillotine or Above the Clouds could easily be on here instead. But ultimately, I dunno, something puts this over the top. RZA’s got one of his best on here too. Also it’s worth mentioning there are few MCs I’m more indebted to in terms of rhyme scheme, I love that line-enders cascading into the next bar shit.
Cappadonna on Winter Warz (1996)
“and smoke a blunt, and dial nine one seven / one six oh four nine three eleven / and you could get long dick hip-hop affection / I damage any MC who step in my direction”
In some ways the antithesis of Deck a few songs earlier, with really simple rhymes but an exceptionally charismatic delivery sustained for more than two minutes straight. It’s not the longest verse ever, but it’s definitely been the one that’s made me go “oh shit, son don’t stop” the most. It’s a testament to the relistenability of this track that I’ve got the quoted phone number memorized.
Kurupt on Xxplosive (1999)
“[explosive] west coast shit nigga / overdosage imperial pistols ferocious / fuck a bitch, don’t tease bitch, striptease bitch / eat a bowl of these bitch, gobble a dick”
I can’t get through “bitch nigga, you more of a bitch than a bitch” without busting up every time. Everything’s so perfect, from the extra L in Guatemala to opening and closing the verse by rhyming bitch with bitch like 10 times. The absolute nuttiest (no pun intended), pimpiest shit I’ve heard since Too Short’s heyday.
Snoop Dogg on Bitch Please II (2000)
“then let me cut these niggas up and show em where the fuck I’m comin from / I get the party crackin from the spit that I be spittin son / hit n run, get it done, get the funds / split and run, got about fifty guns”
Shit’s so smooth the beginning and end of this thought’s cut off by the bar lines. Snoop perfects what Snoop does best on this -- simple rhymes, immaculate flow, sinister goofiness. Love his commentary track throughout the song too.
Xzibit on Down for the Count (2000)
“supply and demand, the hand is quicker than the eye / find some chickens to fry, while you find it hard to stick to your lies / I see through tricks, destroy the facade / your lil lungs is too weak to hotbox with god”
“WHY THE FUCK CAIN’T MCS MC NO MORE?” While Talib and his ilk spend half their career finding annoying new ways of whining about the current state of hip-hop X lays it out in the sickest, bluntest way possible and still has 22 bars to crush left over. (As an aside, anyone care to explain where the last two lines quoted above were first used? From the “all jokes aside” comment in Bitch Please, I assumed he was recycling it from this, but when I was putting this in order I noticed Marshall Mathers came out a good deal before Train of the Thought. Or was all jokes aside just cuz he had a similar hotboxing line in Bitch Please 1?) Rah Digga kills it too.
Elzhi on KGB (2000)
“keep sleepin, my train of thought is heat-seekin / fade your poor squad like strippin ink from a pen and addin Clorox / murder MCs and leave my fingerprints on doorknobs / the court finds me guilty, might be different in the Lord’s eyes”
These guys are all stellar (I should probably start intending these puns), especially Malaki, JUICE, and Lacks (who has a kosher Nas diss) but Elzhi just keeps going with this metaphysical murder mystery shit, all played out in these epic rhyme schemes, the longest of which strings together ten ors (in addition to all those above) plus two pairs of extra internals.
Gigan on Krazy World (2003)
“and I knew she do tricks some youngins call disgustin / fuck em in the butt then have em suck off my nut then / give em all they need to keep turnin out tricks / put em on the strip with nine have em return about six of em”
I was hesitant to choose the above for a lyric sample since prima facie it might seem like some more braggadocio in Kurupt’s vein, but if you listen to the song that’s obviously not the case, and this passage to me captures the height of the track’s nihilistic melancholy. I can’t think of any song that’s so viscerally evocative to me; even if this played out in a movie at an urban strip motel at sunset I don’t think it’d have the same overwhelming atmosphere. This plays to me like one continuous verse with some repeated lines, but if that feels like a dividing chorus to you I’ll go with the first half. Also despite this being a contender for my favorite song I have yet to hear anything else from Zymeer, which I’ll have to remedy at some point -- what a voice!
Jean Grae on Somebody’s Gotta Do It (2004)
“cold shoulders and frozen aortic valves / so I don’t form pals, conform to norms, morals / different, gifted, use it to shift shit / a mutant shape-shifter when I spit it I’m liquid”
After hearing a lot about her -- mostly comparisons to Angel Haze, who I was really into a year or two ago -- this is the first time I actually heard Jean spit, and I was so impressed I bought Attack of the Attacking Things immediately after I got to the end of The Tipping Point. Some of her individual lines have impressed me more subsequently, but on the whole this is still the best verse I’ve heard (that said, I haven’t checked out her more recent stuff). At the time she reminded me of the GZA in terms of combining complex rhymes with cinematic mysticism and a restrained delivery, but subsequently I realized she actually has a much broader range of interests lyrically. Way sat on in any case.
Rick Ross on Devil in a New Dress (2010)
“I shed a tear before the night’s over / God bless the man I put this ice over / gettin Tupac money twice over / still a real nigga, red Coogi sweater dice roller”
I forget where I read someone compare Yeezy to Miles Davis for his tendency to bring out the best in his collaborators, but I thought it was pretty apt, nowhere moreso than in MBDTF. Needless to say, it was ya boy’s jaw that shattered when I heard that fat guy I’d heard on some whack top 40 shit on YouTube droppin fire like this. It’s probably the most epic verse on probably the most epic rap album I’ve heard (I’m sure the beat doesn’t hurt matters either), and it maintains that intense emotional undertone without relying on that gay-ass love stuff that so occupies Kanye. Every time I hear this song particularly it takes me back to bumping this album in Colorado driving across the top of the eastern Rockies.
Killah Priest on Purified Thoughts (2010)
“gravity grabbin me, gradually draggin me through hell’s cavity / this is blasphemy, I fell where the jackals be / God felt bad for me but cast me in the Caspian Sea / Satan gave the dragon his key, Wu family’s the faculty”
I’m a sucker for this kind of mystical stuff anyhow, but this is next level. Aw man, the way the sample lines up with “white doves crossed the eyes of thugs.” I know KP’s long-ass solo albums have a pretty reverent (ayo!) following, I’ll have to get on that one of these days.
Soul Khan on More and More (2011)
“your maneuvers Roto Rooter like totin Rugers in Iron Man / Soul implode your future like swollen tumors in diaphragms / the only human known for brewin fusion in fryin pans / I command a higher hand homie, you just a hired hand”
Before I became obsessed with his rap battles this cat on a film board talked about this as one of his favorite songs of 2011, and I’ve been enamored of Soul Khan since. He’s probably spitting circles around your favorite white rapper as you read this.
Azealia Banks on Bad Girls (NARS Remix) (2012)
“better roll deep with the GG, CC, oui oui / I’ma bust a nigga and then gun him in the pee pee / niggas better hide they little brother when they see me / all these niggas ridin with they cholos on the heat squeeze”
(Lemme know if my stenographer skills are off on that last bar.) I’m I mean I’ve never been too hot on Missy but AZ caught her with her pants down. Like most of the latter’s stuff it’s all in the flow, which matches the beat impeccably here. Of course anything that uses chicken satay in a rhyme has my respect lyrically, especially if the MC manages to tie it to all the pussy she’s getting.
Kendrick Lamar on Control (2013)
“I’m in a destruction mode if the gold exists / I’m important like the pope, I’m a Muslim on pork / I’m Makaveli’s offspring, I’m the king of New York / king of the coasts, one hand I juggle em both”
I’m sure everything’s been said about this already.
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