No. 42: GZA

When the Wu-Tang Clan first bum-rushed the show in 1993, everyone in the group had made it more or less clear that everyone deferred to Gary Grice, better known as The Genius or GZA. He had the cleanup verse on the group's debut street single, "Protect Ya Neck," one that earned instant Hip-Hop Quotable honors from The Source way back when The Source actually mattered. Any hip-hop fan worth a shit can rip off the last few bars in their sleep...

...First of all, who's your A&R?A mountain climber who plays the electric guitar?
But he don't know the meaning of dope when he's looking for a suit and tie rap that's cleaner than a bar of soap
And I'm the dirtiest thing in sight/matter of fact, bring out the girls and let's have a mud fight...

Your lyrics are weak like clock radio speakers.

Unfortunately — perhaps in part because he had already had a largely ignored solo release (Words From The Genius) before Wu-Tang blew up — GZA had to wait while the crew churned out solo projects for Method Man, Ol' Dirty and Raekwon before we finally got Liquid Swords at the very end of 1995. Though it wasn't radio-friendly by any stretch, lyricists were not disappointed with the finished product, which included solid tracks like "Cold World" and "Labels."

The next solo release, 1999's Beneath The Surface, enjoyed similar commercial success by going gold, but the album title aptly describes GZA's career since. None of his subsequent three solo LPs even managed to crack the Billboard top 50, and aside from a few versees on other Wu-Tang projects, he hasn't branched out much otherwise, apparently content to rest on his laurels.

Based on what he accomplished in the mid-1990s alone, that's more than enough to earn a place here.