It's Time for the GOAT Debate
 

Who y'all got? And what factors go into your decision??

GOAT on letsbeef, in battle rap in general, or among hip hop/rap artists?

Shoulda been more specific lol I meant Letsbeef.

I have a tie between RULE/Revan and Lockhart/Reiper/Jimmy Hoffa.

Jason or RealTalk

DaDDio to me is GOAT. UNKNOWN ARTIST is second.

None of those ppl yall named can actually spit it tho besides Lock. Jason and real talk was superb in audio and text

I can't really speak on who's the GOAT of Letsbeef because I was never one of those people who went and read all the battles of the greats. I mostly read battles that were contemporary with the times when I was active, and even then, it was mostly just the ones I was asked to vote on or as part of my duties running a tournament or the FVC. I didn't go out of my way to read whoever was considered a legend.
With that being said, I think the criteria for deciding the GOAT should include those who are dope at audio, text, AND tracks. That narrows down the list pretty well because very few people were good at all 3. Even a lot of the people who could do both text and audio weren't great at tracks and they mostly did acapella audio battles where mostly punchlines matter. Riding a beat well and making something you could actually bump is something different.
Some of the names that come to mind on terms of people I did check out are Real Talk, Conceited, SWAVY, ERUPT, Ticket, Grizzeat, Swissha (Mikey Deniro) and a few others I can't think of at the moment.
Now there are people who are better than some of the names I just mentioned in audio and tracks...guys like stricc and Phil Banks, but their text battling wasn't as deep. There are also guys who are as strong (if not stronger) in both text and audio battling (guys like UNKNOWN ARTIST/YOU WISH and RULE), but their tracks didn't impress me as much. If we consider legacy and influence on LB battle culture, then these guys would definitely be there. But I think strictly speaking, the GOAT conversation should start at who has mastered all 3 (text, audio, tracks).

Thats a good perspective, @NOBLE.

There is a small handful who are great at all three. Punks certainly in there to, imo.

Even though we've had our differences, I'm surprised there's no mention of Seul anywhere in there if we're talking about text and audio. I understand being a 3-headed monster should be the criteria, but still surprised there wasn't a mention.

I think longevity is also something to consider as well as how dominant they were in their era. I hate to say it, but someone dominating in an era when there were hundreds of active members...carries more weight than someone dominating or winning a GC when there are only like 28 active members. I say I hate to say it because it's not their fault that the site is so dead and it also doesn't mean they wouldn't have also dominated when the site was super active, but nevertheless the greats from years past still carry more weight in my eyes than the newer greats for that reason.

back in the day i looked at RULE as the goat so thats who ima say

Here’s my counter-point to this (hear me out):

Jason, Real Talk, and those guys from yester year battled in a time period where there were 200+ active members but about 10-15 of them were what you’d consider good at a given time. The greats from this era are battling in 15-20 people fields where 3-5 are good, and more often than not it’s the same people over and over. If anything, I’d give MORE credit to the Bleus, Rows, Shodans, Edgeworths, and Seuls of the site who dominated and won multiple titles in a shallower yet stronger talent pool where they had to battle the same people over and over and maintain that level of dominance to win over a Real Talk or a Jason who battled in a more watered-down era in terms of competition. It is much tougher to NOT LOSE to against someone you battle 6-7 times (see: Me vs Rai) than it is to not lose to someone you’ve only battled 2-3 times.

I see your point, but I don't necessarily agree. Let's use an NBA analogy. Bill Russell won 11 championships, which is more NBA titles than MJ, Kobe, or whoever else is in the GOAT debate....but he also played at a time when there were only 10 NBA teams as opposed to now when there's 30. Less competition actually made it easier to keep beating the same guys over and over again. If someone wins 11 championships in TODAY'S NBA, that would hold a little more weight in my eyes. You can argue that we have a stronger talent pool in today's NBA or on today's Letsbeef, but newer guys benefit from what older guys have done well as well as mistakes older guys have made...in a way that older guys couldn't have benefitted from newer guys. You get what I'm saying? Doing a crossover is routine now, and whoever is doing crossovers today benefits from having watched Iverson do it, but when Iverson did it, it was original and he didn't have the same benefit of someone else showing him how to do it. It's the same thing with punchlines, syntax and structure...etc. We'd have to curve the argument that guys are better battlers today and we have a generally stronger talent pool today...with the fact that ...a lot of the techniques we use today...Real Talk, Illimit, Daddio, Unkown Artist and those guys did it first and we benefit from them in a way they couldn't have benefitted from us.

No hate to the text heads...but if you can't take it to the next level and spit your shit, you can't be a goat imo. Ain't no ghostwriters out there with goat lables or shoutouts in general.

So Audio....

@Florida44
@ALL-BORO
@MacG
@SIXX-SHOTT
@Danger Rich

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Kats THINK they nice...

There are maybe 10 people tops with a real shout at this accolade.

The answer is probably Lockhart.

There are plently of variables to debate endlessly. The only negatives againt him are: Not competing during the sites peak of activity and the account deletions that stop us from truley being able to review his body of work.

My 2p.

1/

I'd say DaDDiO. But I don't know much about the history of the site and I'm biased in that I'm almost exclusively a text battler. I do think DaDDiO is the greatest text battler of all time.

If @RULE says ur the GOAT ur mission in life is fulfilled. @Lockhart may as well hang it up and accept the blessing that was bestowed. . . NOT! Never quit lol cuz u never know who the next up and coming emcee may be

To me the GOAT can't be a text battler so I'm disqualifying a lot of ya'lls picks

Real Talk didnt have the strongest pen I've seen, but he was dominant in both text & audio no matter who was active at the time so I'd lean towards him. A handful of today's top battlers could beat RT cuz he was too relient on using multis to set up his punches..that takes up a lot of time in audio when he coulda been doin wordplay, scheming, punching nonstop etc instead, but if we're goin by their body of work while they were active & the competition they faced...Real Talk

When Pulse talks, you listen :high:

Lemme add this tho, I never seen a bad verse from Jason. He was one of the most consistent dudes on here. Ever. I feel like I’m one of the only cats who mentions his name in the GOAT category possibly bc he deleted his account. But from what I remember, dude was a God in audio too. Him and RULE were my go tos to read over their battles bc they always had what rap battling is all about (mainly) and that’s punches

Jason had a line about some shade from the trees or something like that that I forgot exactly what he said but I’ll never forget the punch. And RULE had some bar about hammers and construction that he formulated a wordplay out of that’s the same with Jason, I ain’t forgot but I don’t remember exactly what was said. Yes this was text, but still. Bar-wise it’s hard to look past that/them. And UA ate my garbage in one of the text tourneys I was in around when AC’s first started. I’m humbled to say I gotta chance to battle him. But against me at least (even if he took it easy and was rusty or on his last legs) he wasn’t a Jason or a RULE. And he didn’t even win that tournament I don’t think

Jason would drop open after open and still win 100-0 lol no cap

Sorry I gotta rant, but a lot of y’all base yall goats off tourney performances when that’s not where it’s all at. Yeah I understand it’s usually the best of the best in tournaments. I get that. But u gotta look at their whole line of work. How did they do in the ranked arena? Were they just sniping noobs or posting opens arrogantly knowing no one could touch their verse? Even if they were just sniping noobs, what were they saying? It’s not always about who u battle but how well u performed in the battle. That’s my 2 cents

At the Top level it becomes less about skill and more about style. Plus I think it depends on who you first saw come up, like cars, clothes, movies, etc. you saw in high school just become the basis for cool. As you get older you focus less on cool / relevant and more on grown shit but you don't forget what it was.


For me LB Text Top 10 of All Time (by style preference):
iLLimit, UNKNOWN ARTIST, Jason, Real Talk, Lockhart, Bleu, Seul, RULE, DaDDiO & ILLoKWENT

As far as Audio goes it's LoD, M-Rock & then everyone else

If we're talking Best All Around Battler I would say Punk has to be considered #1, he's able to navigate all 3 formats (Audio, Tracks & Text) at the highest levels. While we've got plenty of great Audio & Text battlers and some who went on to Live Battle it's rare they worked on Tracks / kept working on them.

As far as battling goes it's hard not to give it to Lockhart. Maybe if he hadn't transitioned to live battles and continued to be successful you could argue against him, but he has.

Stricc is probably my favorite live battler to come out of LB but he didn't put in the work to get to GOAT status on the site.

I'm not as concerned about tracks. Battle rappers don't often make good music. They are separate skills. Some people can do both successfully but its rare. Shout out to Punk again here though as one of my favorite track makers from the site.

Based on success:

Conceited
Charron
Lockhart
Homeskool

Honestly, there is many to consider. We all view each craft in a different way: Text, Audio and Tracks.

There is also the time period or "era" of each candidate to be considered as well. The competition at "their time" and so on. Its not such an easy task to say who's the GOAT as many of us are from different era's and have seen the rise (and fall) of different people in different categories. You can't say person A from 2006 is worse than person B from 2012 (really) as the craft evolved over time. Same as Hip Hop itself.

Text: (in no order)
DaDDiO
Jason
Mayneak
RULE
Lockhart
Bleu
Seul

Audio: (in no order)
Bleu
Lockhart
Phil Banks
stric
Krhyme Killz
Seul
Bnas (lol)
Ticket
ALL BORO
M-Rock

Tracks: (in no order)
Just C
Punk
ALL BORO
M-Rock


These lists are just off the top of my head, if i spent more time on it, there would be more added to the list. As i said above, its not an easy question as there are many factors to be thought of.

Someone giving Homeskool his flowers on LB. I like seeing that.

Yeah. TBF I forget about Homeskool a lot because he didn't really shine on the site much. Glad that weirdo is finding some success though.

I'm seeing a lot of recency bias in your list..like I said earlier, Real Talk would probably have a slot in all 3 of those categories. People were dominant in different eras. At one time Danger Rich, Saint C, & Tha Duke ran the audio section & had some dope diss tracks too. Meta 4/So Amazin/Mahvulus, YOU WISH/UNKNOWN ARTIST had their stretches of dominance regardless of if they won a tournament or not. Illimit is another dude I'd throw up for text/audio/track.

Imo the GOAT picks weigh more if you're looking at people active from 2006 - 2014 because the talent pool was so much bigger back then vs the 2014 - 2022 talent pool & that's not a shot at anyone who's been winning tourneys post 2014 but we've been complaining about the site being dead since the early 2010's which is around the time there was a mass exodus of talent.

At the very least we're comparing an era that had 500 active members, 40-50 dope ones, 64 man tournaments to an era with 50 active battlers, 10-15 dope ones, struggling to fill 16 man tournaments. 2014 - 2022 was favorable to everyone who participated in 5 tournaments a year because when you're dealing with 16 - 32 people you already have better odds than the 2006 era battlers qualifying for a spot in a 64 man tournament.

Like I said... off the top of my head, if I sat and thought about it, thered be more...

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And early LB would completely wash tf out later LB...word up

You’re not included in the early LB success, pal. Sorry.

lmfaooo

And your still...




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Of a guy who couldn’t win shit in either era?

I have to say lock is the goat..too many titles..tears up in Tex and audio...he almost had a video title but I believe to stricc if I rember right..but he me a transition to live battling so he surpassed that.. he's the goat in my opinion. Flako boom..aka salt of Earth... logging out

Obviously me
 

@Enchi troll, tried to call me out for biting knowing damn well I'm not no biter

Obviously bitch. He got in my dm's saying "you got worse" and asking for a battle. No you lil scary ass. Tired of people hiding beh8nd multis and acting tough. Super puss puss.

That’s a good point.