Who was the greatest?

None!

Nas rules.

I totally agree with you. Before commercialization of rap and remixes and renditions of the great rhymes. Have a look at the insert of a CD from Biggie or Tupacs CDs and you will see all this rappers used extracts from the old greats.
You can even go way back to the 70s sugar hill gang the rapper delight (How many remixes of this have you heard) to the 80s run DMC (walk this way.. still send shivers down my back) and dont forget salt and peppa, Public enemy and the birth of real Gansta rap by the NWA.
I totally agree with msotoville there is no best but im afraid we are seeing the worst with this new toy rappers rapping about nothing no skill, no suave, just boring beats and hyped up videos!!

There is hope though there will come a renaissance and hip hop will live as a true expression. That birth will probably not be in America but from true hip hop head from different countries like K-Shaka(kenya) K'naan (somali canadian), P square- nigeria this list just goes on and on!!
For a history of hip hop listen to commons I used to love her!! Great song!!

I watched a video by Pst. G. Craige Lewis "The Truth behind Hip Hop" and was shocked on the kind of crap our kids are listening to. This music is evil as it encourages profanity, vulgarity and violence.

@ Bony stork ..... website designer aka dry cleaner aka super music producer ....
Nani hao ....
Were you in starch you sound like someone i knew there?
But your still a fool ......
@ Susyjucy, sasaquatch, and assasin ... you guys dont know what your missing.....
hip hop is great.....
and im sure......
your parent thought you have all gone to the devil when you .......
were listening to hippy music ......
and silently spreading AIDS with your hippy love.....
Hip hop forever......

Of cos 2Pac Amaru Shakur rules, even if its its post-humously.And so many of his recordings were released after he kufd mpakapeople thought his death had been a hoax
I still recall how devastated I was on hearing his death circa or in 1996, like i personally knew him.
Its not that we don recognize the other artists but 2Pac (I leave out Biggie Smalls deliberately btw) kept it real - his life on the streets, hugging his DEAR MAMA behind bars as he cried SO MANY TEARS. This guy had real talent, and told his life stories through captivating beats that live on till today...ati Biggie, ah! enuf said pity the east and west coast rivalry cost lives so needlessly

@ Suwan
My kiddo wouldn't let me hear the last of Lil Wayne - in my opinion, Weezy is just a skinny, dread-locked human mural of tattoos with a hoarse voice and the vocabulary of a sailor; talanta yake inaishia hapo.

So I took the little imp (my son, that is), casually slipped the headphones over his ears, told him to prepare for a paradigm shift... then slipped the track below from Common.
Common - Be
That's the last I ever heard of "Weezy this, Weezy that"!

---

@ Intelligensia
I do agree that Tupac was the shizzy - however methinks his rep was overly hyped coz he happened to be on the wrong side of a bullet.

Like @Sheep pointed out upstairs (with footnotes ), the wickedest MC's, freestylers and undergrounders of our time - such as Cannibus - weren't given due recognition despite possessing mad skills.
@Tony Stark nailed it, tracing hip hop from the early days of Sugar Hill Gang, and its evolution through the NWA era, to its maturity embodied by Public Enemy/Run DMC et al, before its desecration in the twilight years of the lost school...and to its unfortunate end in the hands of crunk (Phtuu!)

As ardent hip hoppers, all we's saying is Pac hogged the limelight coz he got capped...and that don't mean that these other cats didn't do a swell job rep'ing it... So you better recognize.

@msotoville

Thats a dope track,Im hooked!

Also credit has to go to Rakim and Eric B...they revolutionized hip hop especially when Rakim rhymed words that peeps thot couldnt rhyme...and they introduced the "hip hop beat"..check this out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv1yK_qdKFM

@Ric

What we are talking about is lyricism,the art of the rhyme.IceT and NWA popularised the genre of Gangsta rap,but they were average to below average lyricists.

What they excelled in was extremely foul and controversial lyrics with simple rhymes and which found mass appeal to the white youths who were the main buyers.Hence found far more commercial success than other hardcore rappers.

This is what Dre repeated with Eminem making him the most commercially successful rapper of all time,but definitely not the best.

Pac was good but even he admitted was not the best lyricists but the realest nigga out there...he even sampled Rakims paid in full beat in Hit em up...

That claim goes to Rakim,the best original lyricist ever.