"If Lil Wayne, Rick Ross & Drake Want To Take The Title From Jay-Z & Eminem, They Need To..." By Uncle Luke

Rap veteran Uncle Luke recently gave his take on hip-hop stars Jay-Z and Eminem along with provided suggestions for what select rappers need to do to reach their level of achievement.

Luke feels Jay and Em clearly display their own unique prowess on each record they put out.

"H*ll, Forbes magazine just named Hova the highest-earning rap star. Others on the list include P. Diddy, Kanye, Lil Wayne, and Eminem, another guy I think is right up there with Jay-Z. Eminem raps his a** off on every album he's put out," Luke said in a blog posting. "In fact, aside from Jay-Z and Eminem, there are very few hip-hop artists who can really claim the title. In the '90s, you knew Tupac and Biggie Smalls were the absolute best in the game. Those guys dropped verse after verse without their buddies rapping on their tracks. Nowadays you have too many hip-hop male performers doing collaborations with guest rappers. A Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, or Drake album will almost always have some other artist showing up to rap every five minutes." (Miami New Times)
In Luke's mind, Rick Ross, Drake and Lil Wayne still need to prove they can stand on their own feet.

"Carol City native Ross has certainly evolved into a h*lluva lyricist. But he needs to do a song on his own that will stand the test of time like Biggie's "Juicy" or Tupac's "Dear Mama." The same can be said of Lil Wayne and Drake. I'd like to hear those two cats produce an album without a guest appearing on songs," Luke added. "Don't get me wrong -- Lil Wayne's lyrics are out of this world. But you can't just do one verse per song and then call yourself the greatest. That's bullsh*t...If Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, and Drake want to take that title from Jay-Z and Eminem, they need to carry albums on their own." (Miami New Times)
After Eminem got labeled the King of Hip-Hop by Rolling Stone magazine last month, rap veteran Cormega shared his input.

"Time and time again, Eminem has proven himself to be a force to be reckoned with," Cormega told Mikey T The Movie Star. "Eminem is an incredible artist. His last album, Recovery, was just proof of his power and his impact as an artist. It's not very often, rarely if ever or never, does an artist put out an album and that album comes back to the charts. His album was a strong seller and then other albums came out that were number one -- and then Eminem's album came back to the top charts. That's historical. People's albums don't do that. Eminem has proven himself to be one of the greatest rappers." (Mikey T The Movie Star)

Zack O'Malley Greenburg, Forbes staff writer and author of the Jay-Z biography "Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went From Street Corner to Corner Office," said Jay has become the "gold standard" to which hip-hop artists aspire when it comes to mixing business and music. "I'd put Diddy and Birdman up there too, but Jay is always at the top of the Cash Kings list because he makes brilliant business moves but keeps putting out relevant music," he told MTV News. "OthE \

[on the list] are more one or the other, but he keeps doing both." (MTV