to campare different types of music for quality. How can you compare The Roots to Beethoven or Miles Davis or Jimi Hendrix? They were all trying to do completely different things with their music; the normal criteria I use to compare hip-hop bands (voice, lyrics, flow, beats, content, etc.) don't really work.

As far as hip-hop goes, there is no doubt in my mind that they're the best. When it comes to the best musicians of all time, yeah maybe I got a little carried away, what I should have conveyed is that they are the best in their style, and I don't know of a good way to compare them to anyone else. The only way I could compare them is to compare which of those musicians who dominate their genre I like the most (ie, which ones find their way into my cd player most often).

The Roots win.

pretend to be cats don't seem to know they limitations
exact replication and false representation