BLOG: The Youngest In Charge

Soulja Boy. Soulja Boy. Soulja Boy. For most saying his name three times is like calling the Candy Man of hip-hop to come and kill the listeners. Yet, with all of his fame and fortune and fans of adolescent status that love to Bird Walk, hip-hop has let dude live. I’d say he’s been given quite a few passes for some of his outlandish statements, he’s also been taken to task for some, all in the name of him being 18 years old. That shouldn’t be an excuse for his antics, although he handled the Ice-T beef better than most expected, actually got Charles Hamilton to turn into the Sonic speed ball and respond in rhyme, got Nas stans all crazy and dealt with Bow Wow how you deal with Bow Wow…but what does it all mean if he ain’t dope on the mic?

Bare with me, I’m trying something here. We all have the ability to go research some shit right now. I could ask a question and you can go to Google and look it up, but not this time, we are gonna go by the honor system. No looking for dates, or ages or none of that, this is strictly off the top of your head…Who is the greatest young MC ever? Meaning, their full-length album came out before their 18th birthday.

Hold up! No jumping on Wikipedia or any of that shit! Right now, go in the comments section and spit the name that you recall being that dude as a youngster who spit fire and their whole album came out before they were 18.

It’s a lil’ tough for me as I want to lean on all the research outlets that I can think of, I see I have to lay off all that Patron. Rap groups are in the running as well; just don’t say Another Bad Creation. There’s a lot out of different choices out there. Fresh Prince? A-Plus? Chi Ali? Illegal? You also have the fact that some of them were spitting rhymes from older cats, so factor that into your choice.

I’m going with (damn, if you follow the rules, this shit is hard)…LL Cool J.-DT