The Wu Tang lads are all near the top of the class, but it ain’t such good news for Snoop, Kanye, Lil Wayne or DMX.
As studies of big data goes, this has to be one of our favourites. A New Yorker called Matt Daniels decided to study the lyrics of rappers to see how many unique words they each used in their first 35,000 lyrics.
In this way he could compare them to William Shakespeare, famed for wide vocabulary. Using this measure, he pegged Shakespeare at 5,170 words in the first 35,000 words of his seven best known works so then he set about seeing which rappers were ahead of the playwright and which were way behind.
The results are very interesting (we recommend you check out this link for a fully interactive chart on the results). Top of the list is Aesop Rock, who uses 7,392 different words, displaying a verbal dexterity that leaves Shakespeare in the shade.
Then the Wu Tang Clan take over. As a group they come in seventh on the list, but a whole bunch of them also make it in as solo artists, including GZA at Number 2, RZA at 6, Ghostface Killah at 9 while Method Man and Raekwon also make the top 25, around the same mark as Shakespeare.
As for other big names, the likes of Eminem, P Diddy and Jay Z are all about average on the scale but other stars like Kanye West, Snoop and Lil Wayne were all near the bottom.
However, the honour for least lyrically diverse rapper is taken by DMX, with just 3,214 words used.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
