No. 21: Snoop Dogg

If you've been following — and if your name isn't Dan Silver, you probably haven't been — then you know I've never been a fan of lyrical lightweights, no matter how influential they might be. It's a big reason why some of the pioneers you'd probably expect to see in a top-50 list (Q-Tip, Run, Erick Sermon, et al.) aren't here, and a big reason why almost nobody who's been on the mainstream radar screen the last decade had a prayer. Lyricism doesn't matter at all when it comes to selling records, but it matters here. A lot.

Calvin Broadus is pretty much the lone exception.

Snoop Doggy Dogg has never pretended to spit meaningful shit. He's not a conscious rapper. He's not known for spitting complex multisyllable rhymes. Basically, he's not known for much more than simple party rhymes about smoking weed and killing people (and B-Real probably did that shit better).

But Snoop also helped define a genre of rap that dominated the culture for a good chunk of the golden era, and he might be the single greatest influence on the pop rappers that have dominated the airwaves since 2000 (that's not necessarily a compliment, but still).

Originally a part of the 213 collective with Warren G and Nate Dogg, Snoop's meteoric rise to fame began in 1992, when he collaborated with Dr. Dre on the title cut for the Deep Cover soundtrack. Snoop's mellow voice contrasted perfectly with Dre's booming vocals (not to mention perhaps the best bass line ever), and it was clear that a star was about to break out.

The Chronic — by any measure one of the top 5 or 10 hip-hop records of all time — belonged to Dre in name, but Snoop made it his, dropping his sleepy rhymes over classic tracks like "Nuthin' But A G Thang" and "Bitches Ain't Shit." Without even having so much as a single to call his own, Snoop's oft-delayed solo project became the most anticipated record in hip-hop history, and maybe one of the most hyped debut releases in any genre of music.

When Doggystyle finally dropped in 1993, it didn't disappoint. Picking up where The Chronic left off, Dre and Snoop made magic again with such classics as "Pump Pump," "Tha Shiznit" and the wonderful "Gin & Juice," still the only song ever that begins with somebody's drunken stream of urine fading into a beat.

Michael Vick ain't got shit on me...

Suddenly, Snoop was the biggest star in music. Then it all began to unravel...at least musically. By the time his second solo LP, Tha Doggfather, came out in the fall of 1996, Dre had left Death Row Records and labelmate Tupac Shakur had been killed. The music suffered considerably. Snoop would eventually leave the crumbling Death Row label and sign on with the crown prince of late-1990s wackness, Master P.

(Puffy still being the king...more on that later.)

Though he had a few hit singles after the turn of the century, Snoop essentially transitioned from rap star to celebrity brand, starring in reality shows and making cameos in movies such as Old School. It's a step up from Flavor Flav, but certainly not anyplace that a hip-hop icon should have gone.

Then again, Snoop never really fit into a box anyway. He was different than anyone that came before him...and though countless wannabes have emerged as microwave-popcorn stars in recent years, he's still one of a kind.

We'll choose to remember his iconic run as the driving force behind the G-Funk era, two classic albums and several inexplicable quotables/urban-dictionary entries (beeotch, fo' shizzle, chuuch, etc.).

He might be the biggest lyrical lightweight in the top 50, but you'd be hard pressed to find five emcees that made a bigger imprint during their apex. For that, Mr. Broadus, we salute you.