Definitely among my top 3-5 rappers of all time, and as far as individual musicians, easily top 25 I think, I don't know where exactly if I was to rank them though. His style and structure of writing lyrics is really just straight up clever, among other things. His motifs are so hard to easily guess as they come but he rewards you so hard for trying to predict what his setups are leading to, and in a way he's Gorillaz-esque in that he develops these themes and stories and overall picture to the characters he's created, but he's just so vivid with it and doesn't waste words for the point of radio playability that it works better than Gorillaz, which often just sounds like Damon Albarn roleplaying. That shit's irrelevant, anyway, Madvillainy is probably an album I'll listen to for the rest of my life.
One of my favorites, sooo good.
Cool idea Dan, I'll be lurking this for sure.