>Hear Me Out. I think there are a lot of artist who are so
>great, so unique that they are one of a kind and no one tries
>to, or are able to ,do what they do. So in a sense, they are
>Not influential?
>
>And I know it sounds like a diss to say that Andre 3000, MF
>Doom, Wu-Tang Clan are not influential, but I mean that as a
>compliment because yeah they had huge impacts on the genre and
>have solidified their place among the greats, but they were so
>creative, so unique, its really impossible to follow in their
>footsteps?
>
>Like I draw a straight line from Kanye to Drake. Or Kane to
>Jay-Z.
>
>But it's harder to do De La Soul to, say, the Roots? De La
>opened up lanes for non-traditional groups like the Roots, but
>its hard to see a direct influence.
>
>Feel what I am trying to say? Are there other artist who fit
>into this mold?

You are exactly right actually because all those artists, especially Outkast and WuTang were not exactly as immediately influential as I thought they would be in terms of mainstream rap. They had influence on the underground definitely and then 10 to 20 years later; however, there wasn't a load of top 40 rappers flowing and creating worlds like Outkast directly after the success of Stankonia/Speakerboxx/the LoveBelow. In fact, there was a very steep drop off in terms of creativity when they stopped making albums imo. Same with Wu-Tang.. It was like they were so good, that the rest of the big name rappers just went in the opposite direction with the focus on materialism and success. Not that Wu didn't glorify gangsterisms and riches, but they did it in a different way. It took years before folks like Roc Marciano and Griselda started to bring that style of rap back.