Fido wrote: Sat Mar 07, 2026 4:29 am Not only I believe Jay-Z should be above Eminem as per criteria, I also think it would be pretty bad to have another white guy as the greatest musical artist of another predominantly black style of music.
Does somebody want to search the archive for Sampson's posts saying Jay should be top 10? Those were fun times.
Sampson wrote:New question: Why isn't Jay-Z in the discussion for the Top Ten yet? Don't look now but he's kicking the ass of a lot of the names we've been talking about. He's got like ten #1 albums, loads of influence, the most Musical Impact of the new century by far (every single artist wants him guesting on their tracks) and his cultural impact is off the freakin' charts. Heis dominant in all four areas of the criteria. Is this lack of attention simply because he's still so current nobody really thinks to do a serious overview of his career or is it something else, because the man belongs up this high without question.
Sampson wrote:We talk about how the Beatles influenced fashion, Jay-Z started Roca-wear, one of the most popular clothing lines in America, with earnings of 700 million a year. He is the biggest artist-mogul in the history of music. He's doing things - successfully - that the Beatles, KISS (who damn sure tried) and others could only dream of. Look at artist owned record labels - Ray Charles had Tangerine Records, Sam Cooke had SAR, The Beatles had Apple, The Beach Boys had Brother, etc. yet they had few hits between them and were seen largely as vanity projects. Jay-Z has Roc-A-Fella Records which had in its stable Kanye West, The Neptunes, Beanie Sigel, Cam'ron, The Diplomats, Just Blaze and Jadakiss. That's some of the biggest names out there. He then becomes the President of Def Jam Records, only one of the biggest independent labels in history, all while still being an artist! And yeah, having the bling to buy a chunk of the Nets further penetrates him into the cultural landscape. He is a towering figure in popular culture.
Sampson wrote:As for Jay-Z's innovation, he was more about secondary influence than strict innovation, which is why I just said "influence". He was the defining example of seeking crossover success while maintaining street credibility, which always the most perilous balance for rappers. Anytime you had legit crossover into pop realm the hardcore hip-hop followers would accuse you of being a sell-out. If you stayed true to the streets and brushed aside any attempts at broader appeal you remained stuck as a big fish in a small pond with little acclaim in the wider market. Now rap was clearly moving further and further into the mainstream before he came on the scene, first with albums (which relied on fan interest completely to move units), then increasingly in the early 90's with a handful of landmark singles from Cube, Snoop, PE, etc. All artists with strong street cred, no question. But then look at Jay-Z who perfected it. He himself said he dumbed down his lyrics to appeal to the mass audience, yet the hardcore rap fans still stuck by him. His productions were polished gems, the hooks were massive and creative ("Annie"?!?!), the rhymes still tough and his flow impeccible. He could dis and be harsh, but could stay witty and accessible. They weren't angry and therefore taboo for mainstream playlists. Remember, this was no Vanilla Ice, DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince or M.C. Hammer, the type of guys who had that level of mainstream hit-stature before him. By the 2000's he's not only releasing a steady stream of Top Ten hits, he's guesting on a ton of them and his presence on them are often what is generating the most buzz. He was omni-present and largely as a result of that style rap itself became universal. He found the balance that acts had been seeking for nearly twenty years and then maintained his stature as the best at it, even as others followed that lead and rap as a whole moved further into the spotlight. That's big influence, even if it was less innovation and more a refinement of what others couldn't quite pull off consistently before him.
Now I'll be the first to say this was inevitible. When an entire generation or two grows up with a style of music that started on the outskirts of the mainstream then it's only a matter of time before it moves into the mainstream once that audience seizes control of the marketplace, but someone's gotta find the key that fits the lock to open that door and then force it to stay open, and that was largely done with Jay-Z, who set the basic blueprint (pun intended or not) of how to have crossover success and stay legit within hip-hop. Secondary influence, granted, but a ton of it.
