Just Rankin’ Sh!t
The 9 Best Voices in Rap, Ranked
Like the late great Guru once said: It’s mostly the voice that gets you up
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9. DMX
There aren’t many people who can rap, “You wanna stop the violence? Get the fuck out my face!” and make you feel it — let alone then be able to bark and make you feel it just as viscerally. Darkman X, the physical embodiment of getting your pockets run at the Tunnel, is one of them.
8. T.I.
After a generation of deep- and/or raspy-voiced rappers helped put the South on the map, T.I. came through with a more refined swag. World-beating confidence filtered through silky rubber band man delivery. It’s no wonder the day-one Biden booster was able to crown himself King of the South.
7. Kevin Gates
When Mavado hit the reggae world, no one had heard anything like him: haunting, melodic, menacing. And while Baton Rouge’s finest may not have had so seismic an effect, his voice — from the minute midflow calibrations to the minor-chord intervals in his singsong hooks — isn’t so much a curveball as it is an unconditional canon.
