Rap Clean Enough for Kids: Top 10 Kid-Friendly Artists and Albums

In my opinion, Rakim is the most gifted lyricist of all time. Tracks like “Follow the Leader” and "I Know You Got Soul" stand up against any poetry by virtue of Rakim's alliteration (“Music mixed mellow maintains to make/Melodies for MCs, motivates the breaks”), internal rhyme (“I can go on for days and days/With rhyme displays that engrave deep as X-rays”), metaphor and command of language.

Album recommendation: "Paid in Full" (4th and B’Way, 1987)