No. 46: Kool Keith

Like B-Real, Kool Keith will never be confused with the great lyricists in hip-hop history. Rhyme schemes are not his thing. He also never achieved the commercial success that came to some of the emcees on this list — but that doesn't lessen his impact on the game.

Keith Thornton first made a splash with the Ultramagnetic MCs, who debuted with the classic LP Critical Beatdown. Their less heralded follow-up, Funk Your Head Up, has always been one of my personal favorites, with Keith shining solo on "Poppa Large" and delivering a solid leadoff on the slept-on gem "Porno Star."

Yup...par for the course.

Following one more Ultramagnetics LP (The Four Horsemen), Kool Keith started to make waves primarily as a solo artist, drawing attention for his off-the-wall style. Rhyming on beat wasn't always a requirement...then again, rhyming wasn't, either. But it all seemed to work.

On his second solo effort, Sex Style, Keith opens up in his usual freaky way:

Sex Style!/N****s want it free/They dogs drink my piss (Girls pay a fee) 
You want freestyle/that's right, the style is free
N****s suck my dick and their girls drink my pee

The album also featured the closest thing to a radio-friendly Kool Keith single, "Plastic World" — although that's a relative term, since nothing Kool Keith put out can truly be called "radio-friendly." He's always marched to the beat of his own drum, and fuck you if you couldn't hear it. Not everyone dug him, but you had to respect him. At least one emcee ranked ahead of him based his style almost entirely on Keith's, so it's clear that the respect is there, no matter how nonsensical most of the content.