For 50 years now, we have marveled at the MC, the microphone craftsmen and craftswomen that deliver their words with vibrance, vigor and a resounding, penetraiting articulation. Their punchlines are punctuated with thunder that soar your soul

On "keep your head up," Tupac literally touched our spirits rapping:
•I wonder why we take from our women? Why we rape our women, do we hate our women? I think it's time to kill for our women. Time to heal our women, be real to our women and if we don't, we'll have a race of babies. That will hate the ladies, that make the babies

You were mentally transplanted into a crowded IMAX theater on a Saturday night, listening to commanding performances on "warning and "Stan" by NOTORIOUS B.I.G and Eminem respectively

Both God MCs not only wove enthralling narratives, they role played, rapped from the perspectives of themselves and characters in the song they were having conversations with
MCs such as Biggie, Em and Busta Rhymes ate Slick Rick and his unmatched story telling in the 80s on records such as a "Children's Story", "More Lisa" and "La Di Da Di" as a source of inspiration that was life changing, Geandmaster Caz, Grandmaster Melle Mel and Kool Moe's Dee were some our culture's trailblazing game changers in the 1970s
A decade later, Rakim changed the game again. There's a definitive correlation of Rakim debating in 1986 with his partner, DJ/ Producer Eric B. and the way MCs started to alter their approach of getting on the microphone
"I take 7 MCs, put' em in a line, and add seven more brothers who think they can rhyme. Well, it'll take 7 more before I go for mine, "Rakim-also known as "THE GOD" because of his religious practices in the Five Percent Nation as well as his wordplay being downright Heaven sent--calmly but "Now that's 21 emcees ate up at the same time. "Rakim was compelling, insightful, methodical, surgically precise, a wizard with words and a street Don. He calmly exuded power, force and righteous, and was udielded vocabulary so masterfully, he never had to curse to get his point across
Millions of his fans today will tell you he is the greatest ever to lay down a verse. The 80s had no shortage of Hall of Fame lyricists that consistently displayed perpetual excellence. From parks and clubs, to arenas worldwide
•Soarface, Just ICE, Ice-T, Ice Cube his N.W.A compatriot MC Ren, Big Daddy Kane, Roxanne Shante, KRS-ONE, Kool G Rap, Kool Keith, Run and DMC, Kurtis Blow, EPMD, MC Lyte, The D.O.C, Chuck D, Whodini, LL Cool J
The 80s class of MC were so indelibly ingrained in the art of lyricism, that the MCs in the next decade refused to be outdone. There was an even larger crop of succeeding rap royal