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![Video thumbnail — Busta Rhymes - Woo-Hah!! Got You All In Check (Official Video) [Explicit]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/EQzvQO2LcA4/maxresdefault.jpg)
The human cartoon of 90s rap—hip-hop's most watchable man, a blur of dreadlocks and rubbery limbs who moved like he was made of springs. Trevor Smith stole posse cuts for a living and built a solo career on being impossible to look away from.
The barking Yonkers growl who crash-landed on the glossy late-90s rap charts like a dog off its chain. Earl Simmons snarled prayers over Swizz Beatz beats, made Ruff Ryders a household name, and opened a #1 movie at the box office. Equal parts menace and open wound, he was hip-hop's most ferocious voice when it needed one most.
Shawn Corey Carter rose from Marcy Projects hustler to rap's defining CEO, making the 2000s the decade when hip-hop conquered the boardroom. His Imperial period—from Hard Knock Life through The Black Album and beyond—turned street rap into stadium singalongs and Grammy gold. Jay-Z didn't just make hits; he made an industry, proving rappers could own their own records and empires. The 2000s belonged to him.
The kid from Queensbridge who, at 20, made the album every rap argument still starts with. Nas's Illmatic (1994) sold slowly and never left the conversation; It Was Written made him a star, two rushed albums made the doubters loud, and "Ether" settled a feud with Jay-Z that defined New York hip-hop at the turn of the millennium.
![Video thumbnail — The Notorious B.I.G. - Juicy (Official Video) [4K]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_JZom_gVfuw/maxresdefault.jpg)
Brooklyn's rap king — Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls — whose effortless flow and vivid street storytelling made him the defining East Coast voice of the mid-90s. His 1997 murder, still unsolved, cut short one of hip-hop's greatest careers at just 24.
Poet, movie star, and the most magnetic voice hip-hop ever produced — Tupac Shakur went from Digital Underground backup dancer to the center of the rap universe in five furious years. Then a Las Vegas drive-by ended his life at 25, and the legend only grew.