Black Cat Bone

Tupac Shakur has been called the Picasso of hip hop. Not that he changed hip hop as radically as Picasso revolutionized the art world, but the level of genius is about right. He only released four albums in his six year long career, but they are hip hop milestones, displaying great mc skills, highly melodic flows, and totally original and integrated sampling. Shot dead at 25, he has had a slew of posthumous albums. And the remarkable thing is that they aren't barrel-scraping, either, but full-bodied productions showing great variety and ingenuity. To spin a Tupac record is like balm for the soul, so smooth, so eminently listenable, you could play him all day and never get tired. You find yourself humming along to the lovely snippets of chorus, and grooving to the phattest riddims and beats. 75 million albums sold; the numbers speak for themselves. But what is even more extraordinary is that aside from the chart records, the rest of his stuff also has strong hit potential, the posthumous releases being filler-free albums, sprinkled with magic dust, good as gold.

Picasso????

Tupac is the Bob Ross of hip hop. Pootling about in other people's rhythms, carving wordclouds rather than uniquely creating them and truly believing he created tru art rather than a shallow version of a proper portrait.

Picasso, yes. Not my words, though, still, I buy it. Rolling Stone 100 greatest artists of all time, RRHOF inductee 2017. But I like Jay-Z better.