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You may have heard of GQ magazine. The publication, which just ran its third Drake cover, has covered hip-hop cursorily throughout the genre's history. After all, GQ is ostensibly a style magazine, and hip-hop has long been a trendsetter in the style world—never more than now.
But today the magazine published a list of "The 25 Worst Rappers of All Time." Written by Rob Tannenbaum, the list is a disaster. It's a mix of obvious non-rappers who rapped one time (Tom Green, Joaquin Pheonix), guys who were hot at one point but are less relevant today (Chingy, MC Hammer), fish-in-a-barrel "obvious" targets (Kevin Federline, Vanilla Ice), and most glaringly of all, genuine legends Too $hort ("pedestrian" —Rob Tannenbaum) and Eazy-E (a "one-dimensional gasbag.")
Not only does this exercise in abject trolling misunderstand how hip-hop works (wow, Ice Cube wrote Eazy's raps for him? Next you'll be telling me Dr. Dre doesn't write every rhyme either!) but it beats up on artists who often don't get enough respect in the first place.
Then there are the loaded class implications of many of the choices. For example, (spoiler!) putting Insane Clown Posse at number one. The group is criticized for selling things like DVDs and Comic Books (Oh no!) and using the word "fuck."
The worst part is just how lazy it is. This piece isn't trying to provoke people to think about anything; at its least-offensive, it's simply confirming the readers' kneejerk prejudices (i.e. that Soulja Boy hasn't made some great songs—he has.) At its worst, it's rewriting history completely, so that artists who don't conform to the author's myopic conception of What Good Hip-Hop Is are marginalized.
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