It is nearly impossible to get a bunch of passionate hip hop fans to agree on anything. But I tried anyhow, starting with a series of polls on Facebook that aimed to figure out which emcee or group was the best in the game as driven by the letters of the alphabet. No specific rubric or criteria was given; just a simple request for answers to the question, "Who is the best emcee or hip hop group beginning with the letter 'A'?; 'B'?; 'C'?; 'D'?..." and so on. The responses were immediate and spurred some pretty spirited discussions. A general consensus was ultimately reached for each and per the request of Music Editor Leilani Polk, I'm bringing the poll results to Ear Buds. Each week, I'll reveal a letter and its "winning" artist, and then I'll re-open the question for further debate. Once we finish the first 26, we'll start it all over again fresh.
Before we get to the winners. I want to thank the folks who are active on my Facebook Page for voting. This list is their collective voice speaking, but I’ll take the hate mail.
Even though DMX is currently getting hated on for supposedly agreeing to fight (un)convicted Trayvon Martin murderer George Zimmerman, his name made the rounds quite a few times during the voting. This letter also saw underground cult favorite DZK get some considerable love, but the truly revolutionary Dead Prez gets the honorable mention goes. So ... if these kings of the Information Age didn’t win, who did?
[jump]...De La Soul remains whereas many of the artist or groups they came up with are no longer active. Posdnous, Dave, and Maseo are friends who've been making timeless music for 27 years and are still out there getting it.
The trio was at last year’s A3C Festival after opening up the Kings Of The Mic tour. When it comes to the letter D, however, these three high school friends are the headliners.