Picking favorites inevitably results in blood baths. Egos get dented, feelings crushed and victors spoiled. That’s the spirit of lists. No matter the conclusion, the convos kindled are worth the struggle of parsing data to crown Number Ones (dot-coms know). Determined to spark deep thought and emerge with definitive rankings, VIBE’s debate squad brainstormed several lists and spent a sweatshop worth of hours in a war room, strapped with 20 years of facts and verbal PowerPoints.
What emerged from that boardroom was a series of lists for our incredibly ambitious Big List Issue, which includes our pick of Top 20 Musical Geniuses, 50 Greatest Albums (featuring our cover stars Kendrick Lamar and Miguel), Most Desirable Celebrities, Most Dominant Athletes and much more from the past 20 years.
Read the excerpt below.
You’re both carrying the torch as the leaders of the new generation. How do you define musical genius?
KENDRICK: Somebody that don’t really have any boundaries, that’s not confined to the traditional structure of a song or traditional sounds. When you listen to “Adorn,” it feels like he’s not even trying to structure a radio joint. He just felt the music, felt the instrumentation and wrote the track.
MIGUEL: Good looks, bro. My favorite artists always took whatever they loved out of music and made it their own. It was their take on it. Kendrick is one of those people where I can hear Ice Cube’s first two albums’ influence. I get the street edge, but then I hear like the poetic player, smoothness, creativity and smart street savvy of Andre on Aquemini. That juxtaposition is what I hear in Kendrick, but it’s his own take. If you listen to my shit, you’re gonna hear Prince, Marvin Gaye, Led Zeppelin or a little bit of the Beatles. That’s where I’m pulling from.
via Vibe
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