“Power Rankings: Buzz worthy Artists” by Badnews

Posted on Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Tags: drake , Lil-Wayne , Lupe Fiasco , nicki manaj , slaughterhouse

In order to keep my plate in front of me this year and also to attempt to try and keep a keen knowledge on what’s going on in hip hop in the 21st century, I decided to make out a detailed yet simple list on where we should rank our shining rap artists in the industry and try to separate the best from the weak. So check out my latest list of who is at the top of the blogs and who has everyone talking. These are the top five buzz worthy artists in 2010.

5. Nicki Minaj- It’s easy to hate, but it is hard to love. Yes she has been getting mixed reviews from critics, but at this point it is getting to the point where everybody knows who she is now and this is her year to show and prove to the hip hop fans as well as the great soundscan machine. Taken under Lil’ Wayne’s wing a couple years ago, the New York native has given a dramatic shot in the arm to the dying breed of the mainstream marketable female MC, and so far it’s doing the trick. If you live in the Tri-State area or on the Internet, you already know who Nicki Minaj is by her dropping hot bangers such as I Gets Crazy, and mind splitting freestyles on the beats of Big Spenders and even her own sexy rendition on the classic Biggie Smalls track Warning. If your a fan of the Come Up DVD and I’m pretty sure if your a man and have a pulse, your favorite Nicki Minaj video is…everyone she released. But 2010 is the year that she has to put up or shut up. So can she pick up where Remy Ma left off and do better? Nicki Minaj is giving us something we haven’t seen in the rap game in a long time…A female MC who can be easy on the ears and eyes at the same time.

4. Slaughterhouse – Crooked I, Royce Da 5′9, Joell Ortiz and Joe Budden have something all in common other than being in the same rap group. They all, at one point or another, were mentioned as break out artists individually by high profile hip hop magazines. Now, last year was Joe Budden’s year and this really helped everyone get Slaughterhouse on the brain, even though it didn’t really help out the groups record sales last year. It did however get them a cameo in Drake’s Forever video standing behind Eminem as he spit his bars. Now this should bring a question to everybody’s attention. Is Slaughterhouse signing to Shady or Interscope? Well, the answer was pretty vague, but it didn’t matter because the new question it brought up was, “If somebody over at Interscope thinks the group is nice and can sell records… should we all start paying attention to them this year?” This is a more than legitimate reason to rank Slaughterhouse at four…

3. Lupe Fiasco – For a guy who was the breakout artist a few years ago, he is already talking retirement after dropping one of the most anticipated albums of the year titled Lasers. Lupe has sort of been under the radar. If you were lucky enough to catch him on tour, you probably saw where he broke the news that Lasers was going to be his last album. Normally, I would have said after “Lasers” drops, look for his comeback album, but the mood and the talk I’ve been hearing from my sources is that it sounds like dude is pretty serious. It’s also rumored that the album could contain three discs, if you still by CD’s that is. Now for someone who we haven’t heard in a while who was suppose to be one of the new artist to change the game (which he was a big part of because I see more skateboards in the hood now more than ever) to all of the sudden saying, releasing a three disc album which will be his last, this is sure a big deal and that lands him at three.

2. Lil’ Wayne – Yes he is number 2 because of the highly anticipated rock album Rebirth. If you remember almost a year ago, I interviewed Drew Correa who produced a couple tracks on the Carter 3. During the interview, he told me that this Rebirth album is a very big deal. Not because it’s a rapper making rock music, but how much the album was being talked about and because Weezy F. Baby didn’t even have definite plans to record such an album yet. Well it’s 20X and the album is done, but because of a Amazon.com blunder, they shipped out 500 copies of the Rebirth a month early and that forced Universal not only to push the project back, but to make a who new edition of the Rebirth to re-release. And with some of the tracks that obviously made their way on the Internet like Knockout and On Fire, the new edition of Rebirth could possibly change hip hop forever and sell a bunch of units at the same time…

1. Drake – Now there is no way you can have the Mixtape of the year that sold more records than most artists sold releasing studio albums under major record labels and not say he is the most buzzworthy artists of 20X. So Far Gone was what some considered a masterpiece, and you know the people will not expect anything less from Degrassi aka Drake. His new Young Money Debut album titled Thank Me Later has either the potential to be a classic hip hop album that could potentially be mentioned with the likes of hall of fame projects such as Reasonable Doubt, Illmatic, All Eyez On Me, and every KRS-One album released in the 80’s. On the other hand, it could be a flash in the pan forcing him to make it up to fans on the third album, either way, If you have us talking about the title of the album for almost a year and your still working on it, at least from my experience and what I noticed, that is sort of a big deal..

Now I have a question to ask you. Who should be on the list that I did not mention?

Source: BadNews – Contributor to HipHopRuckus

-If you have any questions or comments for Badnews, hit him up @ Myspace

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