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July 13, 2023 - The Matt Walsh Show

11:40

Matt Walsh Ranks The BEST Rappers Of All Time

Matt Walsh ranks the top 5 best rappers of all time.  - - -  Today’s Sponsor: Go to https://expressvpn.com/walshYT and find out how you can get 3 months of ExpressVPN free!

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	You know, I've had a lot going on over the past couple of years.
	We've covered a lot of ground, I think.
	You know, I've become a best-selling children's author, as you know, a filmmaker, a women's studies expert, a transphobe of the year, among other accolades.
	But many people don't realize where this all started for me, where my journey began.
	They don't know who I was before all of this.
	They don't understand that at my roots, I am really a music critic, and specifically a rap critic.
	And that's where it all...
	Began for me.
	So today I'm getting back to my roots a little bit, where it all began, and as not so much a rap critic, but as a rap appreciator, an analyst, a scholar of the genre.
	And on that note, I am now going to give, for some reason, my definitive ranking of the, and I had to boil it down a little bit because I could go on forever on this subject, but it's going to be the four greatest rap songs of all time.
	There's always a debate about this, of course, But we're going to settle that debate once and for all, and we're just going to go down the list, four to one.
	So let's get into it.
	First on the list is a name that longtime listeners of this show are familiar with, and you're expecting it to be on the list, and of course it is.
	We begin at number four with my guy, Pooh Shiesty.
	Mr. Pooh has been a favorite of mine ever since he burst onto the scene in 2020 with his classic, Back in Blood.
	Let's listen a little bit of that now.
	(hip hop music)
	Wow, just tremendous.
	Gets better every time I hear it.
	The part that resonates with me the most, the part that I really can feel and that I can relate to is where he talks about shooting up the club.
	And as it happens, Pooh Shiesty was arrested a year later for actually shooting up a club.
	Allegedly.
	Allegedly actually shooting up a club.
	And needless to say, Pooh Shiesty is innocent.
	He's also innocent of the armed robbery charges and the aggravated assault and battery charges and federal conspiracy charges, all from different alleged crimes that were all allegedly committed, allegedly, in the two years after this song came out.
	But Pooh is innocent.
	This is the system, yet again, trying to keep a young black man down, and now he's in prison for the next five years.
	And the world is going to be deprived of the sweet sounds of Pooh, which I think is the greatest tragedy and travesty of all.
	Here's all I'll say about this, and I don't want to get off on a whole tangent about it, but listen, just because a guy says repeatedly in a song, hey, I like to shoot and rob people, and then you're out and you see someone who looks like that guy shooting and robbing people, correlation is not the same as causation.
	So you can't jump to any assumptions based on that, which is why I say, as always, free poo.
	Moving on to number three on our list of the greatest rap songs of all time.
	This one is slightly more obscure, I think.
	It did get 20 million views on YouTube.
	This is from the artist 645AR.
	Because rap artists these days are choosing rap names that sound like the password you use for your Gmail account or something.
	1, 7, 3, 4, 6, 7, 3, 2, 1, 4, 7, 6, Charlie, 3, 2, 7, 8... But it's called Ford to Trap is the name of the song, and it's, and I think you'll see why, but it's easily the third greatest rap song of all time.
	let's check it out.
	[Music]
	I'm sorry, I was just, I...
	It fills me with joy when I hear such beautiful music.
	That is a real thing, apparently.
	It's not a joke.
	And why would it be?
	Why would it be a joke?
	Not a joke!
	That is not a joke!
	That is a natural fact!
	It's like if Mickey Mouse grew up in a fatherless home.
	This is what the music would sound like.
	And this is how you get credibility in the streets, by the way.
	If you want to go down to the streets and be taken seriously, take a hit from a helium balloon.
	Instant respect.
	But mainly, I love this song because it sounds like something that an insect might sing.
	It answers a question we've all asked, which is, what would it sound like if a housefly or a mosquito became a rapper?
	What's up?
	I be flossin'.
	I be flossin'.
	And for answering that question alone, I think it deserves to be number three on the list.
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	Number two, second greatest rap song of all time.
	From an artist who has created so many incredible songs, it was hard to choose, hard to really whittle it down, but I'm going with the classic.
	Okay, so this is Lil Xan, and I know when I say best Lil Xan song, you're all gonna say it with me now.
	Wake Up is obviously his best song.
	I know you've heard this a million times, but let's go ahead and play it
	Yeah I feel like I'm dead. I wake up my I feel like I'm dead. I
	wake up. I feel like I'm dead I mean truly this is the song that for me signals that we're
	living through another age of artistic brilliance You know, this is how the people who were alive during the Renaissance probably felt.
	They had Michelangelo and Da Vinci.
	We have Lil Xan.
	Now, there are some who will look at that comparison and say that it's evidence that the world's coming to an end, that art is dead, that we're the dumbest generation of humans to ever walk the Earth.
	There are some who will listen to Lil Xan and lose their will to live.
	But those people just aren't able to hear and understand the true lyrical and musical and poetic genius of Lil Xan.
	Because listen to these lyrics again.
	Okay, just to recite the lyrics again.
	I wake up, I throw up, I feel like I'm dead.
	A. I f***ed the game up.
	Yeah.
	I drew the game up.
	Yeah.
	We do not play, bruh.
	Yeah.
	In my own lane, bruh.
	Ooh.
	That bitch is lame, bruh.
	Listen to that there.
	That bitch is lame, bruh.
	You know you is a lame hoe.
	My bitch from overstate.
	What you mean, what you mean, what you mean, yeah.
	Indeed.
	What do you mean?
	What does he mean?
	What does anything mean?
	And I think that is the point that Lil Xan is trying to make.
	He's trying to capture the primal essence of a man looking out into the world and seeing chaos and randomness.
	Meow!
	From his perspective, everywhere, not understanding, not comprehending.
	It's the fear of non-comprehension, I think, is what Lil Xan is trying to capture.
	He's quite ingeniously, I think, bringing out that visceral bewilderment, that confusion that we all sometimes experience when we look at the state of the world.
	What you mean, he asks.
	But he's not asking, he's imploring.
	He's saying, he's saying to you, ask the question, what does it all mean?
	It's not so much a song as a desperate plea, a cry from the darkness, beseeching the listener to question, to think, to search.
	And that brings us finally to the greatest rap song of all time.
	This is a song that has garnered 840 million views on YouTube.
	Nearly a billion, okay?
	Nearly a billion views to this masterpiece.
	As you probably expect, it's a song from my favorite, personal favorite artist of all time, Tekashi 6ix9ine.
	And it's called Gooba.
	Let's listen.
	♪ When you see me, what you talkin' 'bout? ♪ ♪ You talkin' 'bout? ♪
	♪ 'Cause always wanna chase clout ♪ ♪ But I am clout ♪
	♪ Tell 'em, get up out my face now ♪ ♪ F*** ♪
	♪ Are you dumb, stupid, or dumb? ♪ ♪ Huh? ♪
	♪ Play me like a dummy, like ♪ ♪ Are you dumb? ♪
	♪ Are you dumb, stupid, or dumb? ♪ ♪ Huh? ♪
	My God.
	It's really stunning to encounter
	raw, unvarnished, artistic brilliance like that.
	I mean, let's go listen to those lyrics one more time.
	Now we catch him at the chicken spot, up a couple chops, put that N-word with a hundred shots, ra-ta-ta-ta.
	Day-Day made that N-word diddy-bop, cha-cha-cha-cha.
	He thought he was gonna knuckle up, b**ch, I don't box.
	And these N-words always talking s**t, ya-na-ya-na-ya.
	When you see me, what you talkin' bout?
	F**k you talkin' bout?
	Now listen to this part.
	N-words always wanna chase clout, b**ch.
	I am clout.
	Now, when you hear that, the first thing you think is, well, first you think, wait a minute, isn't Tekashi69 Mexican or something?
	And so why is he allowed to use the n-word so freely?
	What's going on here?
	The second thing you think is, wow, this makes me angry.
	It makes me angry at Beethoven and Mozart that they never made music half as profound as this.
	It makes me glad that they're dead and that they are in ash in the ground because they don't compare to Tekashi 6ix9ine.
	What the f*** did you just say?
	We could obviously spend all day dissecting the lyrics, but this, the part that really stuck out at me again was
	when he said, "And these n-words always talking s***, yada yada yada."
	"When you see me, what you talking about?"
	"F*** you talking about."
	"They always wanna chase clout, I am clout."
	When I hear those lyrics, what I think Tekashi69 is trying to convey
	is like the futility of words, of speech, compared to...
	with action. You know, he says, "What you talking about? N-word's always talking s***."
	This is a man who's not so much lashing out at his enemies, but rather at, in many
	ways, the lethargy and ambivalence of the modern age. He's saying, "Don't sit still,
	okay? Don't stand off to the side thinking you can substitute words for
	This is very much like Roosevelt's Man in the Arena speech, except in every way better and more eloquent.
	Tekashi 6ix9ine implores us to be men of action.
	I am clout, he says.
	This is an ode to the act of becoming, to the process of doing, of acting, in which we are all transformed.
	That's what I take from the song, anyway.
	And it is why I believe that it is the greatest rap song of all time.

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