5. Noreaga
“Y’all niggas like extra skin — on my dick.” That’s it. That’s the tweet.
4. Cam’ron
When a stellar verse like Cam’s lands toward the bottom of the stack, you know you’re dealing with some dangerous MCs. There are few standout punchlines, just a tightly-coiled flow that spins the same rhyme pattern nearly all the way through. Fun game: Take a shot for every time Killa says “places.”
3. Jadakiss and Styles P
Lovey-dovey couples often finish each other’s sentences — but they probably never trade wordplay about warm pistols, kilos of coke, and heavy fed time. Jadakiss and Styles P of The Lox share a verse, rhyming back and forth in their now-legendary in-and-out flow. It’s poetic, seamless, and street. Name a more iconic duo. We’ll wait.
2. Big Pun
Pun was just rapping things that nobody else was saying in 1998. Shooting up your hearse to “leave you double dead.” Airing out your crib while your kid is potty training. He really earned the moniker Big Punisher here. Banned!
1. Nature
Then a relative newcomer who made his introduction with The Firm the year prior, Nature serves as leadoff batter and slugs that shit out of the park (and smashes a minivan windshield in the parking lot). The Queens rapper’s verse is a time capsule of mid-’90s nostalgia — see: references to Abner Louima, Latrell Sprewell, ’98 Live — delivered with wit and bravado (“I get pussy with my father’s features” is just *chef’s kiss*). He even threw in extra bars, just for the non-believers.
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