Top 26 Hip Hop Poets of All Time

1. Nas

Nas is a prototype of Kool G Rap and a poet laureate of Hip Hop, crafting hits through authentic songwriting, ILL storytelling and is on another level conceptually.  His commercial viability made a lane for the vocabulary driven poet.  Influenced a decade of Hip Hop lyricists. A true poetic architect and vizionary.

Introduced in a time where the hyper-lyrical MC was the norm, amongst peers such as Big L, Prodigy, Notorious Big, Ghost and Rae, Jay-Z, he has only gotten sharper as he has aged.  Salute King.

2. Kool G Rap

One of the 4 mount rushmore members of 1980's golden age of Hip Hop (Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, KRS One) he is the clear lethal lyrical executioner that is the Michael Kuklinski of Hip Hop lyrics and themes. His is the Martin Luther of gangster rap.  

Undisputed champ.  "Wanted Dead Or Live" creates some of the grimiest, and visceral imagery.  The Kool Genius of Rap conveys the greatest archetype in Hip Hop of all time: "the gangster".  In the old school sense of Italian mobsters

3. Black Thought

Black Thought is the leading MC in the legendary Roots crew, with Malik B, Dice Raw, and Questlove, with Kamal Gray and James Poyser getting ILL with the instruments.  Hip Hop's greatest band, has one of the most skilled craftsmen of the artform to lead it.  Black Thought is equivalent to a lyrical acrobatic barbarian (Insert AI Image).  BT was always associated with heavy subject matter and complex compounding rhyme schemes.  BT and Big Pun should have sparred in a juggernaut freestyle battle matchup.

JUST FUCKIN READ

Yo, in the glow of the moon, over the melancholy metro

My poetry is set like a U.F.O

The maestro, the lyricist concerto

My physical play the role of a vessel

The level of my lyrics law manifesto

My thoughts wrestle and attack with the killer instincts

Of a gorilla stronger than Samson without Delilah

My soliloquy profess my ability to just

Stimulate you like the best sensimilla

The Halflife of Illadel' LP, no filler, proceed

Hitherin' is my death, I will blow your tower to smithe-

-reens, the fiends catch another rhyme river

Deeper than the meditations of a Hindu worshiper

Unorthodox hip-hop minister

Than a Serengeti cheetah, my thought's swifter

You lose your balance when the sound hits ya

So check for the Fifth Militia

A poet's under pressure, stressin' that you get the picture (Click!)

Even if it mean you gotta hang over the banister

I pull a microphone on any pistol brandisher

And take advantage of ya crew ‘cause you're amateur

Styles gunnin' down your sound-man and manager

What! This how we do it in the year of '96

With this deliberate attack on pointless rap shit

Breakin' MC's down to fraction, tell your squadron

It's time to go to war, Respond/React once more

NOW LISTEN

True Unsung Hero of Hip Hop, the way he manipulate diction is something I've never seen any other MC do. Delivery and breath control are immaculate in this freestyle.  He can interweave knowledge in his bars effortlessly and is the definition of a complete MC

4. Ghostface Killah

Ghost is one of the most dusted poets to bless Hip-Hop listeners.  Starks came up in a Hip-Hop Royal Rumble style introduction as one of the leading members of the Wu-Tang Clan, which I believe is the single most impactful force to crash in Hip-Hop artform/ landscape.  No need to digress in talking about their greatness, it's common knowledge in this artform's circles.  

Ghost is one of the greatest MC's of all time as well, using his voice as an instrument.  No Ghost verse is understood on the first listen.  Mixing slang with photographic imagery and cinematic storytelling, he creates verbal rollercoasters on tracks

NEVER EMPTY HANDED WHEN LEFT STRANDED

Ghost has innumerable classics as a solo artist and with the Clan

5. Prodigy- Yo it's the P. What more can I say. Prodigy was a bold nigga. There is no greater lingusit that can articulate the pain riddled life of a ghetto kid in Queensbridge living with sickle cell anemia. P worked with two of the greatest instrumentalists in HIP HOP history in The Alchemist and HAVOC. Vocab --- 10/10, Imagery --- 10/10. Wordplay ---10/10. Who could go against a '97 Prodigy? Who?

6. Kendrick Lamar- one of the most dense cerebral rappers of all time. A true blessing of HIP HOP in it's dark (2014-current) era.

Kendrick Lamar started the 'woke' era. Prior to his album 'To Pimp A Butterfly', the term "woke" was not a common term. After this album was released, this buZZ term became viral and spark a frame of thinking in black people. The term "woke" has been perverted.  The movement that Bobby Hemmet, Dr. Phil Valentine, Dr. Malachi York, Frances Cress Welsing and innumerable others, started, before the grifters chose to vulture its energy, sparked revolutionary black conscioussness in the early 2010's when the advent of social media and Youtube came into inception. This term has been used and abused over the years by power players and politicians to halt progression and paint it as a movement that is supported by an unnatural demonic chaotic wavelength.  What is being awoken is a term up to the purveyor. 

Direct descendent of Pac, he has mastered the commercial/mainstream while becoming a poet laureate and a global superstar. I've never heard a trash Kendrick verse.  Pretty impeccable for a mainstream rap hitmaker. A true black music icon who never really compromised his artistic vision, he has a quadruple peat with albums, with widespread critical acclaim and hefty commerical viability.

HE IS ONE OF THEM

A shining star for American Black masculinity in 2025.

7. Big Pun- undeniable descendant of Kool G Rap and simply could be the greatest of all time if he lives

 

Capital Punishment reaches Pinnacle in hip hop lore in this collection  of crime mafioso/gigolo syllable juggling tracks. Pun is the master on this album with innumerable classic features (Prodigy, Inspectah Deck, classic back and forth with don cartegena  More) with a 1St team in hip hop production supplying pure cinema for your ears. Pun is the quintessential Latino artist who broke through to the black hip hop community with "I'm not a Player" .

Pun lyrically is Top 5. Better or as good as storyteller as BIG. His flow and vocabulary combine to mesmerize you. Only unmatched, outside of MFDoom. 

8. Big L- probably the most under appreciated hip hop poets of all time

One of the only new York MCs to delve into horrorcore and influence listeners heavily 

There is no MC in HIP Hop history with more raw poetic talent than BIG L. Dark humour punchlines and one of the most razor sharps vocals delivery and cadence, matured by a track record in Harlem NY battling peers. L freestyles never get old. It's only a handful of them. I can't think of an MC/lyricist who conveys violence better than Big L

9. Scarface

10. Eminem- he is the Quentin Tarantino of Hip Hop.  The most skilled rap artist of all time.  He has had a gargantuan machine behind him his entire career.  But I believe that if you swapped out any other white rap act out with the backing that Eminem had, No One Would Have Been More Successful Than Eminem.  His lyrical rap skill combined with his insane ability to tap into his emotions to tap into the listeners emotions is no equivalent in rap history.  Maybe only equivalent to Pac.

11. Rakim

12. Tupac- the paramount revolutionary ghetto narrator

13. Redman

14. Jay-Z - George Gervin with a microphone. But with more money. The greatest rapper of all time

Jay-Z is the ultimate capilist grifter.  He has been a style chameleon since he hopped in the game. But this is actually an undeniable skill that a capitalist would need to thrive in any environment.  Some people call it biting.  But after Jay-Z, it's now referred to as "paying homage".  Just as long as you do it respectfully

15. Royce da 59

16. Lupe Fiasco- Chicago's own, a true lyrical alien with the pen. His approach to rhyming is like none other. Conceptually, Lupe might the the GOAT. The thought process behind certain songs are high level complex and can come off as bourgeois, but to a true hip hop HEAD, this is Gold. His ability to execute lyrically is solid

17. J Cole

18. Jadakiss

19. Notorious BIG

20. GZA- knowledge kingpin

21. Freddie Gibbs-- the birth child of Pac, Scarface, Pimp C and Bone Thugs, Gangsta Gibbs is like a created player in the modern era of HIp Hop

22. Mos def

23. Common- one of the most thorough practitioners of this Hip Hop art form.  Probably what one would think of as the embodiment of Hip Hop

24. Bun B- there is no other like Bun in the south outside of Facemob. You know that Bun is an intelligent thinker from the verses he crafts over the essential production from Pimp C

25. KRS-one

26. AZ- Allah Zig Zag zig vocabulary is on another level. His marriage of flow, delivery and diction is elite

Honorable Mentions: , Phonte, Roc Marciano, K-Rino, Kool Moe Dee, Papoose, Saigon, Ice Cube, MF Doom, Pusha T, Crooked I