After what seems like extensive research, the good people over at Rolling Stone have crowned a new King of Hip Hop. Marshall Mathers took down the likes of Kanye West, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne by his presence in social media, album sales, You Tube views and industry awards. In addition to those categories, the rappers were also ranked based on their concert grosses, critics rankings, hot R&B and Hip Hop songs. Put them all together and you are hit with the Master Ranking, which puts Slim Shady ahead of Lil Wayne by the smallest of margins. Which is more impressive when you look at the timeline in which they conducted their study, from 2009 through the first 7 months of 2011. Lil Wayne came in second and a majority of that time was spent in prison.
Eminem didn’t come in first, or close to first, in all the categories but the ones that he did come in first, he was alone at the top. The album sales rankings are digusting with Em at the top with 7.5 million. The next closests is Weezy with 2.9 million. Another category he killed was You Tube views, which totaled over 1.3 BILLION. This thanks in part to “Not Afraid” and “Love the way You Lie” which together accounted for over 600 million of those views. Once again, Weezy F took a distant second place with 671 million views. The third category Slim took was Social Networking where he showed off his 48+ million followers/Likes. Once again, Weezy was standing right behind him with 31+ million.
It’s clear that while Rolling Stone may have their King for now, it doesn’t seem like it will stay the same for long. With Kanye and Jay-Z dropping Watch the Throne and Weezy’s Tha Carter IV due out soon, it is safe to say that there will be a shuffle in the top 5. I’m not a hater but Drake should really be no where near the top 10. Just an opinion. Below are the master rankings.
The other categories were headed by Drake (R&B/Hip-Hop and Rap Song Charts), Lil Wayne (Touring), Kanye West (Album Reviews) and Jay-z (Awards).
