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CNN) -- Let's begin with a disclaimer: Nas doesn't endorse the following sentence.

But he's the greatest lyricist of all time.

Those words were carefully chosen: "lyricist" over "rapper" or "hip-hop artist;" "greatest" instead of "most successful;" "all time" rather than "today."

Those distinctions are important. Still, Nas isn't buying it.

"It's wayyyyyy, way, way too early in our lives," he said when asked where he fits among history's best MCs. "It's great to put a list together, but don't take it too seriously because your list won't matter 10 years from now or 15 years from now. It'll be a different list."

OK, no lists then; just a strong case for Nas being the best rhymesmith ever, the GOAT, numero uno, and a humble concession that this is but one man's opinion and yours are enthusiastically welcomed below.

With "Life is Good," Nas dropped his ninth No. 1 hip-hop album since 1994. Seven of those have gone platinum, which places him second among rappers only to Jay-Z with 11. (We're not counting compilations or collaborations here, only original solo efforts, and yes, Tupac Shakur had nine, but five were posthumous releases.)

Read why Nas changed the ...enth album

It also ties Nas with Snoop Dogg or Snoop Lion or whatever his name is, and it puts the Queens native one plaque ahead of Eminem, Too Short, OutKast and LL Cool J, all of whom belong in the greatest-ever discussion, as well.

Hold on, you say? OutKast is not a solo act? And if they're included, why not the Beastie Boys, who also have six platinum records?

Agreed, but dissect OutKast into the individual components of Big Boi and André 3000, and you have two of the most technically deft rhymers to bless the mic. (Another disclaimer: This article's author is an ATLien.)

From 1994's "Southernplayalisticcadillacmuzik" to 2003's "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below," OutKast owned most hip-hop rivals, but since then -- barring the "Idlewild" soundtrack -- they've fallen off considerably: Big Boi has put out a pair of tepidly received solo efforts, André a few razor commercials.

While commercial success is important to the equation -- and the sole reason the brilliant Talib Kweli and Pharoahe Monch aren't included in the debate -- it's only one variable.

This debate, if you will, isn't so much about who can move the most rump in a club, but rather, if we were delivered back to 1800, who could hold their own with Coleridge and Wordsworth. It's why we're arguing lyricists and not artists.

The big 4-0

In a genre not known for the longevity of its luminaries, making it 10, 15, 20 years means you're a survivor -- and you survive only if people keep buying your music.

Unlike his aforementioned brethren in the Multiplatinum Club, Nas has done that without a platinum single. Not "Street Dreams." Not "Nas is Like." Not "Made You Look." Not one.

It means his fans want the entire package, the album as a complete work of art -- an endangered concept in the days of iTunes and Spotify.

Watch Nas, Damian Marley ...Relatives'

Given the occasional knocks on Nas' production, it's got to be the lyrical wizardry that keep folks coming back, right? As he turns 40 this year -- sorry if that makes "Illmatic" fans feel old -- he's adapted to every sea change in rap and weathered every label, right or wrong, affixed to him.

"I've been called everything. Gangsta rap. I've been called conscious rap. You know, everything. Whoever feels like calling it whatever they want to call it, that's on them," he said.

Asked how he could be called socially responsible in one breath and a glorifier of violence in the next, Nas said he's not responsible for such tags.

"Don't blame me; blame our wonderful country, America. And you can't even blame America. It's life. Blame life. I talk about life, and I make universal music with an American style -- and that's what I do," he said. "I know one thing: People put too many labels on music

Strange thing is, Nas didn't know he wanted to be a rapper when he was young, he said.

"There wasn't a lot of things that I wanted to do where African-Americans were achieving what we achieve today because it just wasn't allowed, funny enough to say," said the son of jazz cornet player Olu Dara. "I was trying to figure out, should I become a screenplay writer? Should I be a movie director? Should I make music for theater? I was thinking in the arts, anything that had to do with the arts. Of course, I never had a job in my life, and so I was just this dude that was hanging out -- a vagabond, if you will, in New York."

Read why a documentary on...ouched Nas

That's when Large Professor noticed his lyrical skills. A member of Main Source, Xtra P put him on the track "Live at the Barbeque." The song, funky in its own right, is considered a classic today because it introduced the nation to a phenom from Queensbridge Houses named Nasir Jones.

'A street dude with morals'

QB's Finest remembers well when he first heard himself spit, "Street's disciple, my raps are trifle/I shoot slugs from my brain just like a rifle."

He was in his old neighborhood late at night, and he heard the radio playing from a car on the corner. Some older guys were standing around, "doing their thing, talking and kicking it," Nas recalled.

"As I'm walking by, 'Live at the Barbeque' comes on, and I'm like 'Ohhh!' And I stopped, and I was like, 'Wow, this can't be real. This can't be real. This is me,'" he said. "I'm trying to let them know that's me. And they're kind of like, 'Cool,' and go back to their conversation. But it didn't matter. I was so caught up to hear myself on the radio for the first time; I was in heaven."

That was the summer of 1991. Nas was 17. By contrast, Kendrick Lamar, one of hip-hop's hottest new artists, had just turned 4.

There may be 21 years between his first 26 bars on wax and his latest LP, but that doesn't mean "Life is Good" is geriatric rap, even if Spin magazine prescribed it "for the 40-and-over crowd." Nas said he was "humbled" by the review, though his shows seem to be packed with 20-somethings.

"It's important for me to give an honest opinion on the way the world has changed. I feel like it's just who I am today," he said. "To answer your earlier question, why I'm still around, it's because honesty is the best policy. 'The truth shall set you free,' in the words of the great Aunt Esther from 'Sanford and Son.' ... And I think that's where Spin is wrong. It's not for 40-year-olds. It's just for people who know what's up" (One more disclaimer: The author didn't ask, "Why are you still around?" in a snarky way.)

Which brings us back to the debate. Nas' 40th birthday in September will put him in the company of elite survivors, though only a few of hip-hop's quadragenarians can legitimately challenge him for title of best lyricist.

You've got DJ Quik, Sean Price, Tech N9ne and Doom -- all talented rhymers, but no Nases. There's also Common, E-40, Ice Cube, Busta Rhymes, Scarface, Slick Rick and Q-Tip -- again, a poetic bunch who've been in the game for more than a minute -- but none is Nas.

Big Daddy Kane, Rakim and Kool G Rap, all 44, were game changers, trailblazers even, but their catalogs get thinner the deeper you move into the '90s. Ghostface Killah and Raekwon made their marks on hip-hop and still do today, but they enjoyed more successes as members of the Wu-Tang Clan.

In fact, despite the well-warranted accolades heaped upon these five, there's only one platinum plaque among them: Ghost's "Ironman." (The forever-dope "Paid in Full" doesn't count. Sorry, solo efforts only.)

Dr. Dre, 47, and Snoop Dogg, 41, have long enjoyed broad appeal, from college campuses to Compton corners, but neither is known for the complexity of his content or rhyme schemes. Their production is always extraordinary, and they know how to make heads nod, but lyrically? It's more fun than prophetic.

'Exercise till the microphone dies'

Which brings us to the top five, the professors emeritus. Out of respect for Nas' aversion to lists, let's handle them in no particular order.

Eminem is a beast. As Nas points out, the list will be different in 10 years, and Slim Shady may be atop it, but in 2013 you can't challenge Nas if you dropped your first LP in 1999.

Then there's Pac and Biggie -- and the point where the debate might venture into hurting someone's feelings.

Makaveli dropped six albums, four of them platinum, between 1991 and 1996 before he was gunned down in Las Vegas. The Notorious B.I.G. put out his first record in 1994 and was slain in Los Angeles weeks before his second release, "Life After Death," in 1997.

Both have successful releases after their killings, but their life spans, tragically, were too brief, and for that reason -- and that reason only -- it's unfair to put them up against a man with two decades in the game.

Nas still believes Pac and Biggie are "two of the greatest who've ever done it," and it's not because they died. Big L died. Guru died. Big Pun, Eazy-E and Ol' Dirty Bastard died, but they didn't leave the same legacy.

"I just think Biggie was something else. He was the Hitchcock of this thing, man. He told you a story. There was a seriousness that came with it that can't compare with nothing," Nas said.

He wishes the pair hadn't been taken in their mid-20s, he said, because they "would be at the top of the game" today, and they would've pushed him.

"I'd probably be better if they were still around," he said. "I think I'd be a lot better."

"To leave us with that kind of music at that young age is exceptional. There's no other word to say," he said. "They were bigger than all of us, even today -- their music, their sound, their topics. The way the world listened to them was a lot bigger than I would even say myself and the rest of us ... I don't think today we've made an official impact that those guys were just starting to make."

Watch the throne

... And then there was one: Jay-Z, a man who spent the late 1990s and early 2000s also pushing Nas, and his buttons, during their quest to rock Biggie Smalls' "King of New York" crown.

Let's not bother with the details of their long-snuffed beef or who said what about whom on what album (though, let's face it, Nas' Ginsu verses on "Ether" made Jay's "Takeover" and "Super Ugly" sound a little nanny-nanny-boo-boo. Jigga himself called "Ether" an inescapable "figure-four leg lock").

But it's interesting to note what happened once their ugly rivalry was quashed.

Jay-Z had been named president of Def Jam Records, one of the most powerful posts in hip-hop. Jay-Z could have gone Mortal Kombat and finished Nas. He could've at least used his clout to make life unpleasant for the man who once called him gay, arguably the worst accusation you can levy in the macho world of hip-hop.

What did he do instead? He signed Nas and made a guest appearance on his first Def Jam album.

Or as Hova put it in a 2006 interview with MTV, "I didn't sign Nas; I partnered with Nas. You can't sign an artist of Nas' stature. You can only partner with him. ... Like I said, it's always been a level of respect there. I, for not one second, ever said I don't believe that he's one of the best lyricists ever."

Here is where that "lyricist" v. "hip-hop artist" distinction becomes important.

Jay-Z said it best himself: He's not a businessman; he's a business, man. When you consider 11 of his albums have sold at least a million copies -- seven of those 2 million or more -- as have his four collaborations, two with R. Kelly and one each with Linkin Park and Kanye West, it's as if Hova is King Midas, but with platinum.

He's a hit maker extraordinaire, maybe the world's best, but that doesn't translate to best lyricist. Jay-Z acknowledged as much on "Moment of Clarity" when he rhymed, "If skills sold, truth be told/I'd probably be, lyrically, Talib Kweli."

Even in dissing Nas on "Takeover," he explained why he had sampled Nas' lyrics on "Dead Presidents": "So yeah, I sampled your voice; you was using it wrong/you made it a hot line; I made it a hot song."

And that, friends, is the crux of the debate: hot lines vs. hot songs. No one would deny Hova his dap, but it seems he has said, in both word and action, that it's tough to top Nas.

'Nasty, Nas the Esco to Escobar'

Nas was once dubbed the next Rakim. Rick Ross has been called the next Biggie (Last disclaimer: not by this author). Kendrick Lamar has been called the next Pac. Everyone from 50 Cent to Lupe Fiasco to J. Cole has been labeled the next Nas.

Who does Nastradamus foresee filling his shoes? He doesn't like that question any more than he likes lists.

"There was never a next Rakim. There's only one Rakim, and you can compare people to me, which is a great honor to me, but those guys are really on their path to becoming great Kendricks and greater Lupes," he said. "I think it took years after 'Illmatic,' after my first record, before people started to get used to me and started to get into what I was all about and what the Nas story was."

Nas' brilliance may lie in his ability to keep adapting that story through the years, whether it's from the days when he "dropped out of Cooley High/gassed up by a cokehead cutie pie" or lessons learned as father to his teen daughter, Destiny: "She heard stories of her daddy thuggin'/so if her husband is a gangster, can't be mad, I love him."

Read why Nas celebrates fatherhood

He's been the hustling street kid known as Nasty Nas and the jeweled-up don named Escobar after the world's most famous druglord.

He's been the thug, the black righteous militant, the philosopher, so it's not really weird that he has such broad appeal when he's just as likely to allude to Tony Montana as he is Huey P. Newton or Ivan Van Sertima in his rhymes.

Nas declined to say whether he'd still be rapping in 20 years, though he did offer an assessment on what hip-hop might look like two decades from now.

"It's always going to be youthful expression. It's always going to be a good time. It's always going to be poetry, in the vein of Langston Hughes. At the same time, it's entertaining and party and fun like Luther Campbell," he said, "but it's always going to just be the youth expressing themselves over the sounds that move people in the best way."

Kind of fitting he referenced a Harlem Renaissance poet and 2 Live Crew in that answer.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/0...?hpt=hp_c1

Dupe

big fat NO

GoldDolphin said:

One of the greatest street lyricists and Modern urban writers. I love Nas, his writing is inspiring and very poetic at best and has inspired so many street poets since he came out on the scene!

I respect Nas immensely.

But half the songs on It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back are superior to anything he's done.

In addition to Rakim, we've forgotten about KRS-ONE.

There are a lot of current MCs that could give him a run for his money, lyrically.

Talib Kweli for example.

namepeace said:

I respect Nas immensely.

But half the songs on It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back are superior to anything he's done.

In addition to Rakim, we've forgotten about KRS-ONE.

There are a lot of current MCs that could give him a run for his money, lyrically.

Talib Kweli for example.

please . fucks with kweli on occasion, especially when he first came out and in spurts since, but uh uh . good kid, m.a.a.d. city = the dopest since sliced bread . "for my brothers with daughters, i call this..." was ah-ight too. nas be trying

purplepolitician said:

namepeace said:

I respect Nas immensely.

But half the songs on It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back are superior to anything he's done.

In addition to Rakim, we've forgotten about KRS-ONE.

There are a lot of current MCs that could give him a run for his money, lyrically.

Talib Kweli for example.

please . fucks with kweli on occasion, especially when he first came out and in spurts since, but uh uh . good kid, m.a.a.d. city = the dopest since sliced bread . "for my brothers with daughters, i call this..." was ah-ight too. nas be trying

Thank you for your opinion.

namepeace said:

purplepolitician said:

please . fucks with kweli on occasion, especially when he first came out and in spurts since, but uh uh . good kid, m.a.a.d. city = the dopest since sliced bread . "for my brothers with daughters, i call this..." was ah-ight too. nas be trying

Thank you for your opinion.

you're welcome. alls i ask for

Perhaps in Hip-Hop but not in all of music, I think Bob Dylan and a few others are better than him. Besides, isn't most of his music after Illmatic not that good? I'm not really knowledgable on Hip-Hop but I heard that his other albums weren't that strong and that there are other artists just as good as him.

MiniJamesW said:

Perhaps in Hip-Hop but not in all of music, I think Bob Dylan and a few others are better than him. Besides, isn't most of his music after Illmatic not that good? I'm not really knowledgable on Hip-Hop but I heard that his other albums weren't that strong and that there are other artists just as good as him.

i like it was written better than illmatic personally . i am... is okay too. yah, the rest of his stuff since then has been kinda hit and miss. his lyrics and flow never really goes away, but his song choices aren't always the best.

E-40 wants to talk to all you mahfuckaz!

Seriously, Nas was really good (don't listen to much of his newer stuff, whatever I have listened to hasn't been great).
I love Life's a Bitch, his verse on that is nice but AZ outdid him though

purplepolitician said:

i like it was written better than illmatic personally . i am... is okay too. yah, the rest of his stuff since then has been kinda hit and miss. his lyrics and flow never really goes away, but his song choices aren't always the best.

cool, i'll give It Was Written a listen, I heard it was more commercial than Illmatic though, but that might make me like it more anyway since I'm not a hardcore hip-hop fan.

MiniJamesW said:

Perhaps in Hip-Hop but not in all of music, I think Bob Dylan and a few others are better than him. Besides, isn't most of his music after Illmatic not that good? I'm not really knowledgable on Hip-Hop but I heard that his other albums weren't that strong and that there are other artists just as good as him.

I agree with this.

NAS is one of the greatest MC/lyrist of all time. His my fav, objectively he probably doesnt rank above Rakim but I think he is more than deserving to be mentioned in the same sentence. His later material to an extent is hit or miss but over all he is a very creative and talented lyricist who is very very very underrated. This is like the first time ever I heard Nas really getting some type of acknowledgement. His lyrics and how he creates his storytelling is what makes him iconic. There is not anybody out now that can touch him and definitly not even his overrated peer Jay Z.

The only MCs that are just as good or arguably better are Rakim, Krs One, Tupac etc but that comes from a different era of hip hop. Nobody today touches them in the hip hop lyrical department.

I do like lupe though and a few others who are talented lyricists but they havent really came out with Iconic album like Illmatic.

I have most of his cd's ..................and I've never listen 2 single song.

MiniJamesW said:

Perhaps in Hip-Hop but not in all of music, I think Bob Dylan and a few others are better than him. Besides, isn't most of his music after Illmatic not that good? I'm not really knowledgable on Hip-Hop but I heard that his other albums weren't that strong and that there are other artists just as good as him.

It's obviously a very relative question to ask, everything in music is quite subjective. There is no right or wrong answer, even though some might think that Bob Dylan and some other artists such as David Bowie, Caetano Veloso rank as the most influential lyracists doesn't mean it's better than anything else (I personally love all type of poetry, prose, lyrcism within music). And again it's questionable to say Illmatic is the only good album he did, because while it was the most influential album he made, it's kinda like Thriller - the most known record by the artist but doesn't mean it's his best and that everything that came after is bad. I would say that his album are very good and that there is really no artist at the moment in Hip-hop that has an equally diverse and interesting music catalog like Nas. He was never Jay-Z in that regard, he wasn't selling millions of records or doing hits after hits, his albums are like books - it's a different story/chapter to every song and album. Some are more political, some are more gangster-street/ movie influenced, some more uplifting and so I would recommend for you to listen to his albums firstly.

GoldDolphin said:

It's obviously a very relative question to ask, everything in music is quite subjective. There is no right or wrong answer, even though some might think that Bob Dylan and some other artists such as David Bowie, Caetano Veloso rank as the most influential lyracists doesn't mean it's better than anything else (I personally love all type of poetry, prose, lyrcism within music). And again it's questionable to say Illmatic is the only good album he did, because while it was the most influential album he made, it's kinda like Thriller - the most known record by the artist but doesn't mean it's his best and that everything that came after is bad. I would say that his album are very good and that there is really no artist at the moment in Hip-hop that has an equally diverse and interesting music catalog like Nas. He was never Jay-Z in that regard, he wasn't selling millions of records or doing hits after hits, his albums are like books - it's a different story/chapter to every song and album. Some are more political, some are more gangster-street/ movie influenced, some more uplifting and so I would recommend for you to listen to his albums firstly.

Yeah it is subjective that's why I said that, it's like no one can outright just declare someone as the greatest lyricist, there are many different genres and even different types of lyrics so it's just silly to try to objectify the quality of someone's lyrics. That's why for this kind of thing I generally say that more influential lyricists should qualify higher because quality is kind of subjective.

I didn't know whether Illmatic was his only good album or not it's just that I generally hear that his other material is not as strong so that's why I asked. I'm sure that Nas is a great artist, I'm not too into Hip-Hop but he seems like the one that most interests me of his era. I'll check more of his music out.

And I agree with the Thriller arguement, I prefer Off The Wall and I like a lot of his later work which isn't as critically acclaimed. But when making a "greatest albums of all-time" list I would rank Thriller above Off The Wall because it was more influential but then again how does one measure influence? For example, I'm pretty sure that The Beatles' self-titled album often called The White Album is their best selling but it seems pretty obvious that Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is more influential.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's all subjective!

leonche64 said:

Why is this discussion still going on? I told you people Rakim was the greatest lyricist of all time.

Nops. Even though I think Rakim is one of the most influential artists in Hiphop/rap and has inspired many, so has Nas. Every rapper since Illmatic came out, has used it as a reference and are inspired by it. I think rakim is one of the greatest lyracist, but so is Nas They both admire and respect each other!

GoldDolphin said:

leonche64 said:

Why is this discussion still going on? I told you people Rakim was the greatest lyricist of all time.

Nops. Even though I think Rakim is one of the most influential artists in Hiphop/rap and has inspired many, so has Nas. Every rapper since Illmatic came out, has used it as a reference and are inspired by it. I think rakim is one of the greatest lyracist, but so is Nas They both admire and respect each other!

leonche64 said:

Yes he is.

ISF said:

E-40 wants to talk to all you mahfuckaz!

Seriously, Nas was really good (don't listen to much of his newer stuff, whatever I have listened to hasn't been great).
I love Life's a Bitch, his verse on that is nice but AZ outdid him though

Agree

LittleBLUECorvette said:

ISF said:

E-40 wants to talk to all you mahfuckaz!

Seriously, Nas was really good (don't listen to much of his newer stuff, whatever I have listened to hasn't been great).
I love Life's a Bitch, his verse on that is nice but AZ outdid him though

Agree

Are you trying to get attention with this? Seriously lol... First off you say you dont listen to his newer stuff, which basically means you can't speak much on the mans work since you havent heard most of it, and the argument of saying that the songs (that are new) you've heard arent good, doesnt cut it either lol. Then you say AZ outdid Nas on one song? Really now? lol haha.. People these days -_-

Nas is definitely up there but personally i don't think hes the greatest. I would probably give it to Rakim. I also think Tupac, Chuck D, KRS ONE and Chino XL are up there. Concerning Chino. Not only is he criminally underrated but the dude is smart as heck. If i recall correctly he's a member of MENSA.

[Edited 1/13/13 19:28pm]

Boy Nas last album was GRAND. I am so glad I picked it up on vinyl it sounds like it belongs on vinyl only

Perhaps but Dylan, Ani Difranco, and a few others would also be in the discussion. However, I would definitely call him the greatest rapper so far. When you factor in lyrics, message, timing, flow, voice, image, and production value of the music I think he gets the nod. Like Prince, he might not be the best in any one category but he's the best combination of those things in my opinion.

GoldDolphin said:

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Agree

Are you trying to get attention with this? Seriously lol... First off you say you dont listen to his newer stuff, which basically means you can't speak much on the mans work since you havent heard most of it, and the argument of saying that the songs (that are new) you've heard arent good, doesnt cut it either lol. Then you say AZ outdid Nas on one song? Really now? lol haha.. People these days -_-

Haven't heard most of it? I said newer stuff, last few years or so (I have heard some, not that much). He has been around since around 1994 or so.

Don't get me wrong, I rate Nas! Sometimes people think because the production is funky and the flow is a bit different that it is not ''real hip hop''. They think anything with a little more dull production and more standard flow makes it ''real hip hop''. I'm not saying Nas isn't real hip hop, for sure he is and very good, too! Just that a lot of west coast artists get overlooked and a lot of eastcoast artist become over rated.