Happy birthday, Kool G Rap!
One of the very greatest rappers ever to do it.
Rap fan, I want you to stop for a second. Take yourself back to 1988, and cognize how tremendous it must have been for the following couplet to appear on what became the most iconic posse cut in the history of rap music:
“Take a deep breath, because you don't have another left! Comin' back like I'm avengin' my brother's death!”
That’s Kool G Rap. He just takes you there, man. He’s the father of the cinéma verité style of gangsta and street rap, the originator of the style that turned Biggie and Raekwon and Nas and Tragedy Khadafi and Big Pun and Capone of Capone-N-Noreaga and a variety of other geniuses into legends and stars. It’s all there in that couplet, and in “Cakes”, and “Fall Back”, and “Ghetto Knows”, and “Fast Life”, and “Stick To Ya Gunz”, and “Kool Is Back”, and a thousand other astounding songs on which his virtuosic Donald Goines crime writing – buttressed by his brilliant wordplay, expansive vocabulary, sharp eye for granular detail, and unearthly flow – defined, and comprised the essence of, artful hardcore rap for several entire generations. Not to mention that, at age 53, he is as gifted a rapper now as he has ever been. There’s no way I could ever possibly adequately express my gratitude. Kool G Rap is clearly one of the greatest rappers of all time. Give him his flowers and his propers on his birthday.