Trying to keep this short. I think Big L is a better rapper. But Biggie is a better hip hop artist. Big L was one of the first "shock value" rappers for some of the stuff he said was dark. his multi's and flow was incredible and every song had just a lot of weight to his lyrics. now like explained before he wasent versatile and never jumped out of his comfort zone which is disappointing. as for Biggie he had better production, Beats, And Biggie had a type of style and presence to him. had anywhere from dark songs to dance songs. Now to rate Biggie over L due to production and Beats are unfair. But Imagine if Big L had the tools to have great production and beats? thats a whole nother story.

Not interested in either of these two but always rated Big L higher.

I prefer the production Big L spat over tbh.

@Manky: Agree with pretty much everything you said. It all comes down to different tastes I guess. Well actually I disagree with one thing you said. Friend of Mine and Machine Gun Funk are DEFINITELY not filler, especially the latter. The latter would rank as one of my top 5 RTD tracks in fact. Biggie rips that beat to shreds! The weakest song on RTD is "Respect" imo, and that's mostly because of the hook. I think that Biggie was more of an artist and L was, like you said, more of a straight rapper. "Life After Death" was BIG's crowning artistic achievement, it just had something for everyone.

Have you ever listened to Mad Skillz, Manky? I think you'd really like him.

Also, what's your opinion on Diamond D, Manky?

Maybe some of the tracks on RTD seem more generic because I haven't listened to the record in a while. I can't really remember the tracks I mentioned standing out to me, so that's why I mentioned them lol.

Diamond as a producer I like, I dig his production on the DITC records and the way he keeps things simple yet gritty. I feel his beats are never overbearing and give the MC the ability to take centre stage.
As an MC himself, I don't think he's anything special. Pretty average. I think he suffers from the pitfall that a lot of producers do. They're sick of other people getting the credit for their work so have a shot at rapping themselves and aren't nearly as good as they are at production, I.E. Flying Lotus, Dr Dre, etc.

Never heard of Mad Skillz, I recall you saying a page back that he was similar to Big L yet you felt he did the style better. Which album do you think I should listen to?

Check out his debut, "From Where???"

Yeah, I hear ya on the producer/rapper thing. Diamond D is average at rapping but he's not bad for a producer/rapper. He's better than Dre I think. Erick Sermon's not that good of a rapper yet he's a badass producer haha.