Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five deserve all the respect in the world for blazing a trail for countless Hip Hop acts to follow. As the architects behind “The Message” — one of the first gritty, socially conscious street raps ever written — Flash, Melle Mel, Keef Cowboy, The Kidd Creole, Scorpio and Rahiem catapulted themselves into the Hip Hop history books forever beginning in the late ’70s/early ’80s.
But being an MC requires a certain amount of confidence and swagger, which Melle Mel recently exhibited during a new interview with VladTV. At one point in the discussion, the 59-year-old legend claimed he could essentially battle Eminem with his eyes closed — despite Slim Shady’s reputation as one of the best to ever pick up a mic.
“Easily,” he replied when presented with the hypothetical proposition. “It would be the easiest thing I ever did. At the end of the day, mechanically, technically, he’s a great rapper. But I’m the greatest. I know how to write it. I put it down, it’s going to stay down. It would be the easiest thing I ever did. When people bring that up, just say you can’t beat Eminem. Just say that. But I’ve been doing this all my life. It would be the easiest thing and I don’t even write like I used to.
“This is my destiny. Everybody else that’s out there rapping, y’all trying to do something that I already did 40 years ago and like I said, it would be the easiest thing I ever did. Easiest. Mainly because everybody out there gonna say, ‘That’s impossible … he can’t…’ No, you can’t.”
Throughout the interview snippet, Melle Mel’s confidence didn’t waiver and he explained his perceived “old” age is what’s going to make him “come off better.” He also scoffed at the idea of a Top 50 Greatest Rappers list, saying at best there were about four. When asked who those four were, he said, “Me and whoever else you wanna put behind me. As a matter of fact, don’t even put me in that equation. I’m somewhere else and then you can start wherever you want to start.”
In the follow-up clip, DJ Vlad suggested Tupac Shakur and Biggie, Melle Mel talked about why he feels The Notorious B.I.G. actually isn’t one of the greatest rappers of all time.
“He couldn’t have made it back then,” he said. “Sayin’ what he’s saying right now, that’s what I’m talking about, back then … it’s only guys that rap and did Hip Hop and then there’s all the tough guys. They probably kill you just on that. If you got on the mic talking about who you gonna kill — and there’s only dancers and killers out there, real street guys — and you got on the mic talkin’ bout who you gonna kill — and it’s not like you got your crew and your little entourage … I don’t care who you are. It wasn’t going to work.”
In yet another clip, Melle Mel also explained why he believes JAY-Z is part of a larger problem and isn’t exactly the G.O.A.T. MC people say he is. When reminded he once said Hov was “overrated,” Melle confirmed he wouldn’t be in his Top 10 list.
“I think a lot of rappers are overrated yeah, yeah,” he said. “The main problem that I got with a lot of these dudes, when you made it, you made it. Now you out, forget the street guy act. You’re not street like that. I’m not even a street guy. I’m a hood n-gga. I’m not a street n-gga ’cause I know I’m not going to be on the street like that. And then, to take it a step further, these dudes live in the big houses and they live in the best neighborhoods and there ain’t no street dudes around, but you gonna have this street dude think that being on the street is the right thing to do and the right person to be?
Black Thought Rattles Off His Top 10 Rappers Of All Time
“You gotta give the people that’s left in the hood something to hold on to to make it out of the hood. What a lot of this Hip Hop shit did is make the ghetto permanent. You ain’t supposed to stay there like that. That’s why I say a lot of them are overrated. What they doin’ is they selling a product and then after the product is done and sold, now they’re still thinking they got product to sell — and they don’t. You live a nice life.”
Watch the full clip below.
Eminem is put on such a pedestal when in reality he’s an overrated rapper…when it comes to accolades yea he’s one of the greats but when it comes to rapping ability there’s so many rappers better than him. obviously it comes down to opinion and he has a huge pop following that is more palatable to the general public but when it comes to skilled lyricists, real ones know he’s barely top 50
When it comes to accolades, he‘s not „one of the greats“, he‘s pretty much THE greatest in this genre of music. And I don’t even know what to say about your wild closing statement there lol. Those „real ones“ who think that Em is barely in the top 50 lyricists are haters who know shit about rap. Much like yourself apparently.
Really? Who is on this list of “so many” that are better than Em? I’d love to hear this. Go ahead I’m listening..
Hahahahahaah dude barely top 50?
Eminem is easily top 3 with the number one spot reserved for Pac.
Melle Mel just needed that attention and like EVERYone who needs it name drops Eminem and get that clout. Em is your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper.
I love the em haters,ems the goat sorry haters,dude is 48 and been number one since he came into rap,nobody wants that smoke,name any rapper who stayed relevant for this many years???I’ll wait
Nas! I’m from Detroit so I’m biased. Em is top 5, top 3 anyday.
Lol dude it’s obvious ur a failed wannabe rapper….lay off the rock
‘Everybody from the 313 wave your motherfucking hands and follow me.’ They aren’t the GOATs because Tupac has that title.
I need some of what he‘s smoking… What‘s with all these delusional has-beens these days?
Eminem is trash but melle mel you did get your ass handed to you by krs one lol
He started doing push-ups on stage! LOL
Ems trash? Put your fav rapper on him and watch
First off I do agree with some of the things other people have said but ultimately I support Eminem as an artist because he is constantly outdoing someone and he can body a lot of the rappers out there. He has a creative mind. Now I grew up in the 80s and rap was much different. We aren’t in the 80s or the 70s for that matter. While rappers from then are legendary, they are no longer relevant in the industry. He can step into the ring and Eminem would show him why he is no longer relevant.
For the sake of competitive nature, let’s see these two battle rap it out on some mixtape shit. Then the fans can pick and choose eminem….I mean whoever is the winner
No one beats Em. Period.
Em is good but there have been rappers who could give him a run for his money such as Biggie & Canibus
Didn’t Eminem and Canibus already have a feud that Em won? Biggie might of been able to beat Eminem lyrically tho, possibly Big L too. R.I.P to both of them.
Or every single rapper who completely made him obsolete on his last album. He can’t rap next to a rapper and sound like anything but a nasal, hormonal teenager. It’s infuriating that hacks like this become famous while actually talented people die in gutters cause they weren’t white at a time when rap was ready to have a really awesome white boy produced by Dre. Eminem could have been anyone at that time.
“No one beats Eminem dad! No one! He’s #1!” – Special Ed white male who’s never had a girlfriend for more than 2 weeks
……lmaooo, yeah right. Shouldn’t this old fart be in a nursing home? He clearly didn’t take his meds the day he did this interview.
KRS destroyed him tho decades ago and he never did anything about that so…. yeah…no..also… this isn’t a push up contest and the complexity of lyrics, rhyme schemes, style,beats, and knowing/understanding the atmosphere of the audience during the rap battle are key to winning the battle. Not just one or two clever punch lines. That and he has to remember, Eminem’s whole career was based off him being a battle rapper so that’s pretty much his element. Mel was talented during his time yes but if he was up against even Biggie or Jay-Z in the 90s, he’d easily get crushed lyrically and probably leave with a bruised ego to boot. Mel said he was nice with the pen. Biggie and Jay-Z don’t need to write. It’s all off the top.
Biggie don’t need to write? He would have put a hell of a more albums out than just a couple if that was the case. Jay also writes, just not on pen and paper in traditional way. You givin em too much and too little credit for their work at the same time.
this is sad. the definition of “out of touch”. what a hater.
Ain’t nobody hating anything right now except Eminem’s horrible music.
Delusional. EM is extremely overrated though.
Early career, he was a novelty and MTV’s next big thing. He’s a celebrity. He’s not a GD rapper. You don’t do three songs with Ed Sheeran and then talk about hip-hop, get the fuck out of here.
Early career, he’s overrated.
Late career, he’s so terrible that if he’d started out this way, he’d have been Vanilla Ice.
I’ve never seen Melle Mel on any top rapper lists anywhere ever in my entire life. From anyone! Not even down at number 50. Absolute clown.
That’s because he’s black and Dr. Dre didn’t produce him at a time when even Ja Rule could go platinum.
As for all those black rappers laughing their asses off putting Eminem on any top 10 list, hey they gotta sell records, and white boys buy records.
What are you talking about you moron? Most rappers are black. The comment has zero to do with Eminem, hes been terrible for a good while now.
yooo ? first of all when your networth value is 1.5 million and you claim that you changed the image of rap.. if your shit was so good guess you would own more.. second quit drugs grandpa em would destroy your ass with diaper line or some we’d still laugh our ass off.. third thing fuck those agreeing saying em sucks y’all trash ass haters and should suck a dick.. have a blessed day
I Seen this guy cleaning the floors at the gym.
They call him Melle Broom Mel.
Real Talk
Omg bro stop playing ????
???
My top 10
1. Black thought
2. Jay z
3 Andre 3000
4. Biggie
5 Jadakiss
6 ll cool j
7.tupac
8 em
9.method man
10.ice cube
Number irrelevant melli Mel. I saw him the first time they came to Philly. Didnt pay attention to him. I loved grandmaster flash though great dj
Rang dang diggedy dang da dang
Vlad tries getting people talking about Em cause that’s what gets him clicks. People already stopped f**king with him so he desperate for attention… got me lol I still clicked
I bet you’ll haven’t heard half his records he is the first .RAKIM said he looks up to him as one of the greatest. The message is the greatest rap song ever..
What are you 80 years old? I’m 40 and know him and the message and I still say he’s full of it. If KRS One made that comment I could somewhat understand cause lyrically he was crazy, the same goes for Big Daddy Kane who Jay looked up to….but this dude? Eminem would destroy him in a battler and of course Biggie and Jay are GOATS.
If you’re not joking, I’m still laughing at this.
Eminem doesn’t write lyrics. Eminem crams as many random things into a sentence as he can because it blows Special Ed white boys away. In reality, his music is some of the laziest, meaningless, emptiest garbage I’ve ever heard. And I’ve heard Ace of Base, so I know garbage.
Ever heard of an opinion cuz thats what you and Mel have in common.
Melle Mel is easily top 8000 in the world.
Uh oh. Now Eminem’s going to write an entire album with 1000 similes in it detailing why he’s offended that “The_Truth” called him the 8001st best rapper in the world.
Poor itty bitty feelings.
I agree with him about Biggie and Hov
And you sound as crazy as he does….
Clown
The self proclaimed GOAT (Lol) … his regular sentences dont even work that well
what is the definition of greatest of all time.
Clout at it’s great
All I can say is..spit. I wanna here it. Props to both cuz their legends but it all comes down to battle. Put up or shut up
Eminem’s never battled a real rapper. The closest he ever came to it was battling MGK, and MGK actually embarrassed him bad. Like bad. MGK’s diss track was classic, Eminem’s was like an old man telling a kid to shut up. Just ridiculous.
A real rapper would hand his a– to him, but he’s white and teenage white boys who buy music love him, so most just stand back and let him rattle off the top of his head to himself about some asinine mumbo jumbo.
All I can say is WHO’S TALKING SHIT. NEVER HEARD OF HIM
Well since Mike from a website has never heard of him, it’s obvious he couldn’t possibly out-rap the white guy Mike listens to because he’s never heard real hip-hop.
Where Willie D at so be can knock this dude out again.
Lol One track of Biggie is better then Melle Mell’s whole catalogue.
Dude had some buzz in the beginning of the 1980’s. When Run Dmc, Rakim, Ice-T, BDP, Big daddy Kane etc. arrived it was over. Nobody cared for Melle Mel.
Because you are one of the first it doesnt mean you are the GOAT. You had one or two classic songs.
Now you are 57 years old and broke and bitter because nobody knows you.
Respect to him for being a pioneer but unless you’re willing to put up then you need to shut up. It’s also a bad look to be used as a tool for fuelling DJ Vlad’s desperate need for clicks by bringing up Eminem in every interview. His reasoning was idiotic as well. Eminem came up at a time where being white was a serious disadvantage in hip-hop. Now there are a bunch of white rappers out there because he was able to break through that wall. Jay-Z is talented as hell and had one of the most consistent runs in the genre, all without even writing anything down. Biggie made an impact that has lasted nearly 30 years off the back of only two albums. Sorry but Mel sounds like a delusional egotist that thinks he’s still living out his prime.
It’s as if people forget the Beastie Boys existed and were a fuckton better.
MAN I THOUGHT I WAS TRIPPIN’ I READ COMMENTS ABOUT WHITE RAPPERS, THINKING TO MYSELF… DOES ANYBODY NO ABOUT THE BEASTIE BOYS ??? DAMN THANK YOU FOR WAKING PEOPLE UP…. IF ONE LISTENED TO JAM MASTER J @ RUN_DMC
??? THEN MAKE SOME NOISE !!! FOR MIKE D” .. MCA @ AD-ROCK … THE BEASTIE BOYS !!!
If you like rap, you will listen to DOOM, Kurupt and RZA. If you like metal, you will listen to Slayer, Darkthrone and Bongzilla. If you like jazz, you will listen to Miles, Coltrane and Shabaka. And if you like pop, you will listen to Jay, Big and Em.
Well put??????????
I mean I respect Mel, but his wordplay was rhyming ‘cool’ with ‘school’.
He needs to sit down.
? that’s that cat in the hat flow. He may as well said Dr. Suess is the best lyricist. Much respect though, he probably one of the greatest of his era.
lmfao
You’re right. Rhyming “Shoving a thermometer up your mom’s a– like glass and bout to make a pass and I rhyme really really fast” is much more brilliant.
But not really.
I’m gonna respond to that in Eminem.
“He need to sit down
Like a clown
In a wheelchair
Here’s my ball hair
It’s all there
Are you stare-
ing?!
Gabiddy biddy bing
I’m wearing a ring
Now listen to me sing
I lied I told you I can’t sing
Ring. Fling. Ming. Chaching.”
LoLz… This guy doesn’t even know Biggie is dead…
I agree with what he said about Big and J.
Out rap Em?! Better than Jay & Big?! Lol. He’s definitely going senile. Someone please get Willie D to knock some sense into this guy, again.
Every single person who rapped on his last album out-rapped him, including Young MA. She’s black so she’s obviously not going to connect with the gabillion angry white males who buy Eminem’s music, so they’d really furiously disagree, but it’s true.
Eminem has copped every black rapper’s style in history. He’s a parody of rap, not rap. Most of his stuff is embarrassing to listen to.
But somewhere, always, is an angry white kid listening to him talk about “shoving a thermometer up your mom’s…” spiel and thinking, “GENIUS.”
Wtf are you talking about? Em is one of the GOATS and you dont know music if you think otherwise.
After listening to Eminem’s last 8 albums, I’m thoroughly convinced that any rambling hobo in the subway could out-rap him.
But angry white teenage males disagree, and they buy music so.
Lmao who better than em…fuck outta here no one can out rap him
Is this MGK? look kells stop with the crack!!!
Melle Mel said he gotta write it down… You know rappers freestyle now. He’s a lesson but just like the message.. Melle Mel pushed to the edge and lost his head… Mel needs to check himself before he wreaks himself. Fucking around he gonna kept under…
Goddamn, you people are illiterate as a mf. No wonder everyone laughs at us.
????
That was meant to be a laughing Emoji
Well if I was him I would just be quiet Em Our fav white boy he gonna drop a line and his career gonna be over see Meek didn’t say shit lol and I’m from Philly BIG GOAT NI KING Jay B’s GOAT ard Don’t play wit BIG doe at all Peace
He must be about to drop an album.
??????
He must be losing his mind
Hes over crying about kim! Nobody’s out rapping Eminem . Dude spits every style plus so fast give this kool mo d wanna b a heart attack. All u haters who trash Eminem can kiss my big white ass. Everything people say now days is race u got suckered in to the government’s plan to use people of color to control voting like puppets don’t even see it Fuck Trump but at least he wasn’t selling us to China the dude u people elected made the laws himself that put everyone in jail for weed small shit giving out felony trumped up charges putting normal people away for years. Nobody’s woke. To busy keep in it racist. Life’s not easy I got fake as cop lied gave me tickets cuz I’m driving Escalade and I’m white. Cops fuck.people over but we need them or we live like Detroit fuck that keeping it real.
Yep your deffo an eminem fan! Could u squeeze any more utter crap into one reply all of which is nothing to do with the subject matter. Im the words of em “he convulsing hes convulsing were gna have to shock were gonna have to shock…..braindamaged!” *drops mic*
WTF is this old ass dude smokin? He isn’t nowhere on the same planet as Em…not even the same Galaxy lmao this dude has dementia or something
Mel is the Goat!! We FBA don’t listen to Eminem.
Feminem ?? yeah i dont support women hating pieces of crap who get butthurt when told no either. Used to be an awesome rapper. Now im convinced hes been cloned as the latest incarnation is awful and doesnt even look like him
This dude like 70 those cat in the hat rhymes back then when rap first started out dated & if he’s putting a album out I will buy it just to laugh at it
Get on with it, don’t just talk shit Mel put it down… and easily? Please now your just being cocky
Melle mel,man man man, you are the old version on 50 cents. You out here hating on everybody who has made it and better than you. This is a 50 move man. I will not call EM a great just yet but the boy is very good. But biggie and jay_z are not g.o.a.ts. man you are more delusional than I thought. melle mel bobbie and are 1 an 2 in the hip hop world, and this coming from a man 2pac is his favorite rapper. Oooooo melle mel remember krs 1 and how he handed your ass to you back in 89. I remember that shit well. And I would love to see you battle jay-z sense you called your self the best.
Em not a goat yet?
How can you say Jay z is a goat and not em? Once again the color of one’s skin gets in the way of one’s judgment.
He needs to learn how to finish using a shaving razor before plugging in the clippers, he will end up cutting himself…..
Jay Big not legends what a load of bullshit
This clown is wack ?.
Well stan without Melly Mel and a few other guys back then there wouldn’t be no hip hop & me personally I know that this dude they call em now is a clone he’s not the real slim shady & he’s cool but him nore gay z is fucking with Jada kiss & neither of them could mess with Big L
STFU ?
I still ride to Biggie but no he can’t be a g.o.a.t. He only has two studio albums and a total of about 27 songs. So his catalog is too short to be considered a g.o.a.t.
That’s what makes him a Goat. Such little time and such little catalogue and it’s EPIC. get it? Quality over Quantity. KRS has 30 albums nobody bumps that shit. Biggie been gone since when? Get radio play daily.
I’m sorry, but I have to vehemently disagree. And I’ll make it easy to understand. If he were as great in reality as he is in his own mind, why isn’t he doing it still? Because like everything else, things, times, and people change. He’d get smoked by more than just Marshall and Jay-Z…
Hater stand on line!
He was one of the originals but it doesnt make him the best. Hate just for the sake of hate. It’s all good though, let him have his time in the spotlight. It has been over 30 years since anybody wanted to hear anything from this man. Must be tough to be one of the kings of hip hop, and now when it is the most popular genre nobody remembers you ever existed. He gets a pass for this BS, but it is all BS.
What a joke this guy is get to stepping you has been.
everything he said is on point if you haven’t misunderstanding what he’s talking about that s*** misunderstanding coming from The view and coming from the time zone where he come from and growing up everything you seeing is correct all they do is selling your product
none of these rappers are the greatest EMC they wasn’t in they wouldn’t have known what the greatest MC was it allowed didn’t come up with the term none of them was the greatest MCS none of them not only battled in hip Hop you have to battle you’re at the Battle now they ain’t getting on stage in bed all these different MCs none of them is better because they all been influenced by somebody Jay z been influenced by a lot of Philly rat by Philly rappers none of these dudes are the greatest they just got great money
This guy is high…tell him take off his locs….gotta be drunk off colt 45….i never heard off him…he aint make no since….he a hater trying get bk off EM…..but cit that shit short on jigga….Jigga is only understood by the gifted….