During his continued support of his NYT Best selling memoir, The Upcycled Self: A Memoir on the Art of Becoming Who We Are, Black Thought touched on his favorite MC's in Hip-Hop.

Stating, “If I’m Black Thought and the reason I call myself Black Thought has something to do with the painter’s palette and the colors that go into — all the different nuance that goes into creating even the color black, then my Top 5, seven, 10 is going to represent my primary colors.”

On Kool G Rap

“I could kick Kool G Rap’s rhymes, from ‘Poison’ or ‘Men at Work’ or ‘Road To Riches’ forever — and these are songs that are already 35 years old."

On Big Daddy Kane

"Big Daddy Kane was far more stylistic than technical, or just as stylistic as he was technical, and he was smooth, right? He was a smooth operator."

On Rakim

“Before he even knew he wanted to rap, he knew he wanted to do something where he was able to articulate himself in a way comparable to John Coltrane. So he was the first MC to really think about things in that way.”

On Chuck D

"Chuck was all activist, right? His last concern was cadence and flow. He was just more about getting you the information, being on beat, grabbing your attention, smacking you saying: ‘Wake the fuck up.’ And that was a brave, again, stylistic decision to make at the time."

On LL COOL J

LL was the royal chief rocker but he was 16 years old, and he moved like a season veteran. And that’s something that, even having toured with him this summer, is authentic. That’s just who he is. He’s a class act. He’s always been legendary and that’s just the way he moves. That’s his stature … once you interact with him, it reveals itself to you. And it’s like, wow, he’s the real deal.”