Biggie is the best of all time. People nowadays sell him short because he only made two albums and died at the age of 24. Jay-Z is great, but his entire career essentially has been dedicated to verses centered around B.I.G. quotes. That isn't meant as a diss either, because Jay would admit as much.
Nobody comes close to Biggie's combination of flow, wordplay, and charisma/presence (except Big Daddy Kane in the late eighties). His versatility also is underrated; he can make a socially conscious (and extremely angry) track like Things Done Changed, an unbelievably clever thug rap like Gimme the Loot, and a catchy "player" rap like Big Poppa, put them all on the same album, and sound credible doing all three. The rest of Ready to Die is fantastic as well, probably the best performance of all time by a solo rap artist.
To repeat, the only reason Biggie isn't universally recognized as the best ever is his relative lack of material compared with the artists he's being compared to.
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