>But as I've aged, I'm about PERFORMANCE over everything. If
>you're delivering your bars with conviction, clarity and
>precision, I can rock with "empty" verses. My gold standard of
>lyrics just being holistically great are the last two records
>from KA, Roc Marci's first two joints, the Durag
>Dynasty/Alchemist one-off, Blu's Good To Be Home...I could go
>on.
>
>On surface, it's just bars bars bars to some but it's more
>than that for me.

Right...but some people haven't moved on from being amped about syllables/multis and stuff that looks great written down. But even cats that folks consider wack can slang some syllables in watered down doses because stuff like Illmatic made it a thing to strive for. Nas's 'stature' on the mic and as a person who 'understands' what he's presenting is what seems to be missing. IE: a bunch of cats can WRITE something that reads dope/lyrical/etcetera. The great ones can handle that part of it AND deliver something with clarity, precision, and conviction (I like how you put that hence the theft). But if can only be one, give me the better performance. Either extreme is a flawed experience for me though. So many cats think lyrix is the 'singing a gospel song on the Apollo' of rapping...like 'lyrics' alone is supposed to propel you..we have too much proof that this isn't true.