This Post Has No Famous Guest Appearances

Imagine if Nas' Illmatic featured guest appearances from Jay-Z, Prodigy,The Notorious BI.G., Keith Murray, Common, Q-Tip, and a host of his other contemporaries. Sure, as fan of all of these artists, this sounds like a dream. However, when you really think about it would that album be anywhere near what it is if Nas wasn't the primary voice? What if instead of being Nas' first hand account of life in the rotten apple, 'New York State of Mind' just featured every hot New York rapper of the moment? Collaboration is as essential to hip-hop as any of the 'elements,' and most classic albums have at least one feature, but recently it seems like emcees are almost afraid to carry an album by themselves. That may not be the case, but something is definitely up. Just look at  the albums that were in contention for 5 mics in The Source - Drake has features on 7/14 tracks, Big Boi 11/15, Bun B on 11/16, and Rick Ross on 10/11.

XXL Magazine recently ran a piece on their website mathematically breaking down the time alotted to guets on Rick Ross' Teflon Don, and Ross actually raps less than 50 percent of the time on his own album! The odd thing about it is, some of these features are totally unncessary. Gucci Mane's verse on 'MC Hammer,' for example, added nothing to the song, which was a certified banger long before Gucci hopped on it. Similarly, as much as we like both Drake and The-Dream, did Dream really need to be on 'Shut It Down'? We're sure Drake could've held down that song on his own. Obviously these artists think adding a bunch of people to their projects will make them better, but why?

NEXT PAGE: SO WHAT'S THE DEAL?