Rolling Stone Magazine have infamously been known to create titles for people who have reached a peak of success. It seemed like this time around it was Hip-Hop’s turn to make its crown.

“Now more than three decades old as a recorded medium, hip-hop is deeply embedded in popular culture – to the point where its stars seem not only larger than life but also, as Rick Ross once put it, “deeper than rap.” But even as they sell out arenas and top the pop charts, rappers still court the respect and esteem of their hip-hop peers. The title King of Hip-Hop still means something. In that spirit, just as we did in June with the Queen of Pop, we’ve crunched a pile of data to try to determine who is the current King of Hip-Hop.”

The article Rolling Stone wrote seemed very long and just jabber mouthing, so I took the time to try to make this sound as simple and easy to read just for our KillerHipHop fans. Check after the jump how Eminem was crowned, ‘King Of Hip-Hop’.

The way Rolling Stone did it is that they gathered as much data as possible from the top 20 rappers they believed was in control of the Hip-Hop game. They first started off with Album Sales.

These were the albums sales of their last solo album they’ve made. So for Eminem it would be “Recovery”, for Drake it would be “Thank Me Later” and for Rick Ross it would be “Teflon Don” and etc.

Now let’s turn to their radio-singles of Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop & Rap Charts.

Now it seems like Mr. Aubrey Graham took this ballot by beating his successor by a couple hundred points. This success in Billboard was granted to Drake because of his hit singles off of “Take Care”, but the album sales weren’t as high as Eminem, Weezy, and Hova.

Now let’s turn to their Youtube video views

“When tallying the views racked up by our contenders’ official music videos, we were reminded of an ironclad YouTube rule: Pop rules.Of the 10 videos we tracked that were viewed more than 100 million times, nine were Top Five hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including Jennifer Lopez’s “On the Floor” featuring Pitbull, Katy Perry’s “E.T.” featuring Kanye West, and Jay-Z’s team-up with Alicia Keys, “Empire State of Mind.” (As for that 10th video, “Price Tag” by Jessie J featuring B.o.B., it topped the pop chart in Britain.)”

Self-explanitory, right? Well now let’s turn to their Touring

Seems like for Eminem & Jay-Z they were both rewarded with $7.5 million with the joint concert they had in Detroit & Yankee Stadium but their total sales were unavailable. In other hands, people love going to Lil’ Wayne concerts since he grossed at the top of the list. It’s not only tickets that are the one being counted for but also merchandise. Ladies love having Lil’ Wayne on their shirt.

Now let’s look at their Social Networking numbers

With the world going Social Networking crazy, it’s very important for celebrities, not just rappers, to have their numbers up. More numbers equal more promotion to the people. The public loves using twitter because they get to follow their idols and have a somewhat fictional relationship with that person even though they have no relationship towards one another what-so-ever. But it gives an opportunity for fans like myself to get first hand exclusives from their favorite artist, themselves. So this chart is very big in claiming who is “King Of Hip-Hop”.

Now let’s turn to their Album Reviews

I found this part of the data process very boring and irrelevant. But you can see that the staff at Rolling Stone are huge fans of Yeezy.

Now let’s turn to their final data process which is Awards

There are two very interesting facts about this chart. 1) Drake has over 40 awards but has never been able to win the most precious award of all and that’s a Grammy. With being nominated six times, he still hasn’t hit the post-award show with Grammy’s in his hands. 2) Diddy has been in the game since early 90s, but till this day he has not won not one single award. This is very shocking to me because he has led success to many careers with Bad Boy Records.

Finally as all the data charts being process, we finally have a winner.

“With his dominant album sales, YouTube views and social-media scores, Eminem takes the title as the current King of Hip-Hop. Unlike our Queen of Pop ranking, which Lady Gaga took in a walk, Marshall Mathers’s win was somewhat closer – note the fairly tight point range among our top three.”

As you can see Eminem truly deserved his recognition as “King of Hip-Hop” but with new albums coming out by Drake & Lil Wayne, T.I. being released from jail, Jay-Z & Kanye’s Watch The Throne, who knows who can take the crown next year.  Don’t forget that J. Cole is also dropping his freshman album this September, so this raises more questions on who deserves the crown. Another notable statement is that, Nicki Minaj was also voted in the top 10 range and that is a first for a female rapper. She was also nominated in the top 10 of ‘Queen of Pop’. Her success seems to keep climbing and climbing.  Hip-Hop’s future seems bright and is ready for any changes. Seems like Mr. Mathers has the throne and Hova & Yeezy has to watch that one.

What do you guys think about Rolling Stone’s decision on “King Of Hip-Hop”? 

And who would you crown as “King of Hip-Hop”? 

Leave your comments below and we’ll make sure to reply as many as possible.

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