You’ve got hype men like Flav and Freaky Tah.

You’ve got rappers who get equal mic time and many times are great rappers themselves, but are typically not regarded as highly as their partner: Big Boi, Malice, Big Pooh, Dave. I say “typically” because sometimes people prefer these rappers over their partner as this thread has shown. But the general consensus would be that the partner is better. Still, these are not sidekicks IMO. They hold down 50% of the album.

Then you’ve got those that didn’t get as much mic time or play as big of a role in the group....these would be the ones that could be more accurately described as “sidekicks” IMO. Vin Rock, Phife, maybe Malik B. That’s no disrespect to any of them....Tribe wouldn’t be Tribe without Phife and he’s obviously a legend. But Q-Tip carried a bigger load as far as having more verses(not on every album, but overall), plus producing.