There’s a strong emphasis on ‘OGs’ in the hip-hop world and few people would argue that Joe Flizzow is somewhat placed in the upper echelons of that category when it comes to Malaysian or even Southeast Asian hip hop. The Too Phat days with Malique were groundbreaking and revolutionary. The ongoing Kartel Records story, at the rate that they’re going, is an all-conquering movement.
We sat down with Joe recently for an in-depth interview on a number of things, including his new single ‘Drop’, the rise of the 88 Rising boys, the rivalry between TooPhat and Poetic Ammo as well as his new YouTube hip hop show ’16Baris’. There were bits in it about Luqman Podolski and his jump into the music industry too.
But before we get that interviews out to your mobile phones and desktops, we thought it’d be cool to give you a little teaser by releasing something we spoke to Joe about towards the end of the interview. The 38 year-old is very open to the rise of various sub-genres in hip hop, including trap rap but when we asked him about his top 10 favourite rap artists, you could almost see his mind working like a time machine, instantly going down the memory lane to outline a list of rappers that would easily be classified as ‘OGs’.
While the list is in no particular order, the first name that comes out is Andre3000 and he didn’t even hesitate. “I love Andre3000 so much man, he is easily one of the finest to have ever graced the game. If you look at modern rappers Joey Badass – and I like Joey a lot – there’s a lot of Andre in him,” Joe enthused. From Andre, he went to Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, Biggie, Tupac and then Nas. No questions asked.
The seventh name on the list was Jadakiss. “I think Jadakiss has got the best voice in hip hop,” Joe says, before going on to pick Big L, ODB and the Wu Tang Clan boys, as well as Mob Deep to complete his top 10 list. “If you noticed, 60% of the rappers I picked are all dead. But these guys are the original ‘OGs’, they were the rappers I grew up listening too.”
Keep an eye on Hype Malaysia in the next few days for the complete in-depth interview with Joe Flizzow!
FULL LIST (In no particular order)
Andre3000
Snoop Dogg
Jay-Z
The Notorious B.I.G
Tupac Shakur
Nas
Jadakiss
Big L
ODB & Wu Tang Clan
Mob Deep
