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Celeb News: Rappers With The Largest Vocabulary in Hip Hop
Member Since: 3/5/2014
Posts: 7,164
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Rappers With The Largest Vocabulary in Hip Hop
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When it comes to grading and comparing hip-hop artists, there are a number of attributes that need to be examined: flow, message, beat selection, popularity and so on. A category that is often overlooked is vocabulary. Tallying up a single artist's word choice is a tall order, but given the significant use of slang and differing discography depths between artists, finding a balanced measurement is a difficult accomplishment.
New York-based designer, coder and data scientist Matt Daniels took up this challenge, pulling out the number of unique words from the first 35,000 lyrics of 85 artists -- unfortunately excluding artists like Kendrick Lamar and Biggie, as they just don't have enough content -- and using Shakespeare as a benchmark under the same condition. The clear champion is Aesop Rock, coming in with 7,392 words, easily beating Shakespeare's 5,170 words, as well as Herman Melville's 6,022 words in "Moby Dick."
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I used a research methodology called token analysis to determine each artist’s vocabulary. Each word is counted once, so pimps, pimp, pimping, and pimpin are four unique words. To avoid issues with apostrophes (e.g., pimpin’ vs. pimpin), they’re removed from the dataset. It still isn’t perfect. Hip hop is full of slang that is hard to transcribe (e.g., shorty vs. shawty), compound words (e.g., king ****), featured vocalists, and repetitive choruses.
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Lil' Kim (4,474), Salt-N-Pepa (3,612) ,Nicki Minaj (4,162) & Missy Elliott (3,874) Are The ONLY Female Rappers/Group On The Entire List.
Aesop Rock Takes #1
with 7,392
GZA #2
Kool Keith #3
canibus #4
FULL LIST - http://rappers.mdaniels.com.s3-websi...amazonaws.com/
More dope research projects - http://www.mdaniels.com/
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Member Since: 11/4/2010
Posts: 34,287
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Not surprised the likes of Aesop Rock and GZA have the largest vocabulary.
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 9/14/2010
Posts: 78,921
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Lil' Kim and Missy 
I'm surprised Eminem isn't featured, didn't he purposely study the English language to write better?
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Member Since: 4/26/2012
Posts: 33,881
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There goes that Nicki, Missy, and Kim Trinity again.
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Member Since: 9/1/2013
Posts: 20,022
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Lil' Kim
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Member Since: 3/5/2014
Posts: 7,164
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Quote:
Originally posted by Callum
Not surprised the likes of Aesop Rock and GZA have the largest vocabulary.
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!! before i opened it i Knew Aesop would be #1!
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Lil' Kim and Missy
I'm surprised Eminem isn't featured, didn't he purposely study the English language to write better?
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Queens
Yeah he's on there! He's Above Cypress Hill (Below the 4,300 mark)
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Member Since: 11/10/2011
Posts: 14,820
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I wonder where Pitbull and Flo Rida would land in this.
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Member Since: 8/31/2013
Posts: 6,548
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Quote:
Originally posted by J a y
Lil' Kim and Missy
I'm surprised Eminem isn't featured, didn't he purposely study the English language to write better? |
He studied the dictionary, yeah. And he is featured, he's got like 4k+ I saw this a couple days ago and it's interesting but it doesn't just count dictionary words. Outkast for example has good vocabulary but they also made up their own slang sometimes which counts as another 'word' and it boosts their totals
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 9/14/2010
Posts: 78,921
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Quote:
Originally posted by LilKim
Queens
Yeah he's on there! He's Above Cypress Hill (Below the 4,300 mark) |
Oh yeah, I see.
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Member Since: 3/5/2014
Posts: 7,164
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nnnnnnnn at DMX being last
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 9/14/2010
Posts: 78,921
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Quote:
Originally posted by Mrs. Aaron Paul
He studied the dictionary, yeah. And he is featured, he's got like 4.6k. I saw this a couple days ago and it's interesting but it doesn't just count dictionary words. Outkast for example has good vocabulary but they also made up their own slang sometimes which counts as another 'word' and it boosts their totals
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I thought it was something like that. Who reads a dictionary? Dedication
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 6,332
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Saw this the other day, very interesting.
East Coast dominating
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 1,859
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I'm glad that they acknowledge this. I was always pleasantly surprised by the vocabularies of rappers. Rick Ross didn't even pass 2900  His lyrics are so literal 
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Member Since: 6/10/2011
Posts: 12,738
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LOL I see Ludacris. I was wondering where he would end up. He uses some words that even I don't know the definition of.
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 3,240
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I don't buy Kanye being that low
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Member Since: 8/22/2011
Posts: 933
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lauryn hill and foxy would be the highest females on the list if they were included. I'm surprised eminem isn't higher
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Member Since: 8/18/2013
Posts: 9,981
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Nicki
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 6,332
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Quote:
Originally posted by downbywednesday
I don't buy Kanye being that low
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He's never been a complex lyricist  His music production is why he's a genius
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Member Since: 3/5/2014
Posts: 7,164
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Quote:
Originally posted by Apocalypso
No Left Eye?  |
Not enough discog to rank tbh, Supernova is so good tho
Quote:
Originally posted by the_ill_nana
lauryn hill and foxy would be the highest females on the list if they were included. I'm surprised eminem isn't higher
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Lauryn didn't have enough discog to rank
I thought the same for foxy  this dude is legit though he does these researches fopr a living
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Member Since: 8/31/2013
Posts: 6,548
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This list also is only their first 35,000 lyrics only. Some don't have enough material to be fairly included
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