Art Barr,
Why don't you think Cam'ron is top 5? He paid his underground dues with Big L and COC. Created a movement that is still felt as I type this. C'mon OG Art Barr
cam fits into the skillsets or impact provided by the seven and had to use those skillsets to get where he is.
case in point:
ll & bdk tied at three
g rap at five
finesse at seven
in that situation cam has not done anything on any plane
to supercede that group that took his skillset to dominance, that predate him by a decade for starters easy.
as he is in the smooth fly spitter realm of bdk and ll,..but can't really make a record like i need love. yet he can make a knockoff of bdk's the day you're mine but decades later it isn't more skilled.
when it comes to g rap and finesse he uses g rap's and the lineage of big l/finesse's skill rubrick.
yet he was not ever as skilled upon debut as them and really has not surpassed them. when you take into account how much skill finesse and g rap have ramped up in.
cam just doesn't have the timeline or originality to trump them.
plus cam in coc was heavily a ghostface/g rsp/eight is enough guy.
he did not have a skillset early on that was original.
that could hang with and outdo any legendary contemporaries early on.
like cam could not have had a stalemate agaisnt percee p,...when finesse did i. that era with original skills.
also,...cam has not outclassed all his contrmporaries on another coast like g rap did in one shot in that era as well. where skills were more open to free interpretation. similiar to how g rap clearly shows he is heads and shoulders above every so-called gangster rapper pioneer on two to the head.
plus put on a skill exhibition where he clowns kane so bad on number one with a bullet.
on the same album plus provides records on par as his westcoast contrmporaries over their style of production.
it was the last time,...the arguement of who was better was settled between kane and g rap.
originally kane was better and provided so much more than g rap in full content and skill.
that by the time number one with a bullet dropped,...kane was dead as a relevent skills guy.
no knock on him all time after the fact,...because then the shelf life was not typically long for skilled emcees.
in that regard cam never was so profound in skill that allowed him to supercede big l's legscy all time.
nor did he add on to the skillset in such a way that he trumpd big l as his mentor.
plus cam never made as many classics in a row from his debut, as kane is given credit for.
nor is his debut better than big l's that was released in the wrong era becauee of delays. as big l's record if it dropped in 93 like it was supposed to .
would have changed the game way before it finally did later on.
plus cam in comparison to g rap never made four lp's in a row as g rap did.
also finesse, bdk, ll, were argueably given props as some of the best or possible goat talent level emcee wise when they first dropped.
cam was not doing anything skillwise to uproot the skills and impact of the seven.
which is why he isn't ranked as a goat.
no rapper will come out to trump the seven as they did everything you could possibly do in rap to the fullest. in a skilled way no one else can uproot or supply better in history.
the seven:
1 : krs
2 : rakim
3 tie : ll / bdk
4 : melle mel
5 ; g rwp
6 : caz
7 : finesse
art barr