While being interviewed by Charlie Rose again on Friday, Jay-Z was asked be someone in the audience who his top 5, dead or alive was (including himself of course). No cameras are allowed at the taping, but YN captured the footage that you can view at Rap Radar.
“I guess I would choose Big because of his ability to tell stories, to be humorous, to be dead serious. He just had it all, and the voice alone,” Jay said of his friend. “I choose Pac because his fire would overcome his…what he doesn’t have in technical skills would be overcome by passion. If you listen to that Tunnel verse with Big, he’s saying “MC Hammer and the .357…women,” Jay said, reciting a clean version of Big’s bars, before continuing on about 2Pac. “Then you hear how he comes on, he just screams on the track. His passion could put a lot of guys to sleep.”
Mr. Carter then moved past his contemporaries and onto the legends he came up listening to. “I guess uh, Kool G. Rap,” he said of the man he once compared himself to on The Black Album. “I would uh, yeah KRS-One. I need more emcees, I gotta get Eminem and Nas in you know? Them as well. But those five, then we’ll switch’em up.”
