4.Gift of Gab
Gift of Gab might be the most underrated MC to ever do it. I mean yea, people talk about Blackalicious as a great group, but you never see him mentioned in top 5 lists such as these. It's unfortunate because the man straight up kills every verse he spits with multi-syllable rhyme schemes that show no mercy to any beat he is on. His work, as I became aware of it, extends back to the aforementioned, Chris's Funky Stuff V. 2 . The track called Deception tells the story of the rise and fall of an MC named Castro. It gave me an early glimpse at the whole, "rapper selling out" idea and I have loved it ever since.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A0BmbiM53Q
Gift of Gab is always fresh with his concepts and although i am not positive, I believe he was the first to do the whole alphabet in a rhyme song thing. Check out Alphabet aerobics where he flips words from all letters of the alphabet in their order and blows minds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvPnM2Q1nwU
Another wiiiild song along these same lines is Chemical Calisthenics, where he goes through a bunch of the elements on the periodic table..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyjowd3AxEI
To be honest. It is hard to pick specific songs from his arsenal to showcase because there are so many. He is just so consistent concept wise and flow wise. Please, if you havent heard of Blackalicious go out and buy all there records. The music is universal and really truly wonderful. Start at the beginning of his work for sure, but The Craft, his latest work is probably my favorite of all.
