As i promised geniueses 4-6 are up next, these are not listed in the order of their greatness or brilliance for those that are wondering.
4. Prince- an astonishing array of talents and capabilities. Prince can channel Hendrix like guitar, Art Blakey drum stylings, Beatleish songwriting and a kinky Eddie Kendricks falsetto effortlessly. Over a seven year span, ( creative peaks), he gave you Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day, and Sign of the Times. These titles testify to the brilliance and breadth of this man's genius.
Has hip hop produced any geniuses the art form while the most challenging music style is not for it's acceptance and patience. Thereby making it difficult to establish one's genius. The nature of this beast called hip hop is what's fresh, what's hot right now, which makes it hard for an artist to find his lane or create one. With that being said it has produced two geniuses......
5. Jay-Z- Hip Hop's most consistently stunning artist. The fact that he gave you an every 9 months on average in his career is enough to applaud. However what magnifies his majestic talent is that he never wrote one lyric down. 12 albums in seven years, no for a peaks and valley debate his entire career was a creative peak, touching on love, jealousy, fear, loyalty and his mistakes. Rappers rarely let their guard down and he did it and never lost his cool.
6. Notorius B.I.G.- Hip Hop's Haley comet. Biggie Small's is the illest, he said it himself and never has a self proclamation been truer. Biggie had an ability to craft lyrical visuals like no one else. The rhymes transported to some awful Brooklyn alley and allowed to bare witness to the horrors and leave unscathed. His type of talent comes around so rarely that people are still picking over his lyrics, and regurgitating them 9 years after his demise. The most amazing thing about Big is that he started writing rhymes the traditional way, pad, pen and whatever studio stimuli necessary. After his first album, he grew tired of Puffy's insistence on proofreading his material, so he began storing his rhymes in his head. For an individual to do that between projects and get better, phenomenal.
There you have it 7-10, coming soon, until then can a filmmaker be a genius considering the fact that so many work on a movie. Discuss.
2 comments:
I have thought about this post for quite some time now and have concluded that I would have to disagree with a few more choices on the Genius list. I have read and re-read your definition and conducted my own research, although not complete and concluded that your list while commendable is and will be flawed. I won't dispute the Richards or the Marvins of this world but only selecting 10 and only ten not the top 10, and among them you include BIGGIE makes me believe that this list should really be called “Rashid’s Big List Of Geniuses”. Jay-z's selection is pushing it. I can see how he would make the all time Hip Hop Genius List, but I feel your reasoning could be a bit more descriptive to include him here (NO PEN OR PAPER, MOST CONSISTENT, REALEST STORIES, SET THE MOST TRENDS AND HIS INTERVIEWS WERE HOTTER. Oh! Consistent being the key word here. No one in rap has been more consistent, LL maybe so. Come on, at least give the man the write up he deserves. Biggie for all that he has done just falls short. He hardly had enough body of work or longevity to fit into one of the criteria for Geniuses you listed, “abundance of mind blowing material”. For you to select (10) and not define them more thoroughly than this is just…I don’t want to say it! Please forgive me if I am not completely sold on this list or offer up my own at this time. Yes, I know this list is according to your definition and is bias to your favorites. You have yet to define why Mozart will not be on this list…what the…! Your inclusion of directors leads me to ask once again are you just selecting musicians and entertainers or what? No sports figures, businessmen, actors, scientist or painters? If Biggie can get on this list with just two complete albums, Kanye should be included on this list for the two albums he has rapped on and produced, on top of which as we have seen the boys talents go far beyond that of being merely a rapper/producer. I would like a little more expose’ on these selections to the list. This ain’t Vibe is it?
The purpose of this blog is to sharpen my skills as an amateur scribe not to be the end all be all expert on genius. Secondly this blog covers the last 31 years. Name a painter, businessmen,or scientists that you deem genius in the last 31 years. Meaning that they had their creative peak at some point during my life. Thirdly certain areas, aspects or art forms I am not as informed as I would like to be. Therefore I am unable to quantify or qualify certain people, that if just rushing to judgement I would say yes. Did one person create the internet, cell phone, K-Y jelly I don't know. Furthermore who are these people. You know who invented the light bulb telephone, and gas mask but these things we use everyday you have know clue who these people are.
Biggie and Jay-Z even though they are both rappers are in for completely different reasons as are all of the first 6 people I've listed.(Expound later on the latter I gotta get to work.)
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