A prerequisite for being a great MC is having other rappers take your style and imitate it, incorporate it or straight up bite it. Pause.
Big Sean knows this well enough (creating styles, he’s still got work to put in before he can be considered great) since he’s credited with spawning the “Supa Dupa” punch line flow where metaphors and similes are stripped to the bare minimum (think: no use of the words “like” or “as”). Nicki Minaj kicking, “It’s going down, basement,” on Ludacris’ “My Chick Bad” or Drake saying, “Swimming in money try to find me, Nemo,” on his own “Forever” are just a couple of examples.
“With the super duper flow, I created that one word rhyme style,” Big Sean told Sway Calloway during yesterday’s edition of RapFix! Live. “Drake really made it more popular, but Drake gave me the credit and was like I really got that from Big Sean.”
In an interview with AllHipHop.com last year, Young Money rapper Drake credited Big Sean with creating the flow he and Nicki Minaj had been incorporating in their rhymes. The song Sean said he first used the innovative flow on was “Supa Dupa” off of his UKNOWBIGSEAN mixtape. When Sway asked him to give an example of the cadence, the Detroit MC kicked a bar from “Supa Dupa”: “Used to be bottom, scuba/So I’m on the grind, skateboard or scooter/‘Til I am the king of my castle, Koopa.”
In the same Drake interview Sean referred to, the Toronto rapper called out Ludacris as one of the artists who didn’t know how to use it on “My Chick Bad.” “Coming down the street like a parade, Macys,” spits Luda on the song.
“I think some artists just did it so wack man,” said Big Sean. “Every time I say names I get in trouble and it’s like I’m dissing, but some people used it wack. If he said Ludacris used it wack, hey.”
Sean then asked Sway for his opinion and even referred to “My Chick Bad” by adding “Balloons!” Sway said he believes Ludacris is a dope MC, and Sean agreed, and is from the school where innovation should come first. The G.O.O.D. Music delegate didn’t go so far as to actually say that Ludacris did a bad job with the style, though.
“Don’t get it wrong I’m not trying to dis Ludacris or nothing,” Big Sean said. “He’s a great MC. But even though that that style that got so overused, there was a lot of people who did it great and there was a lot of people who didn’t do it so great. People always ask me was you mad that people took that style from you. I’m like, ‘Nah, that went and shows me how far I can go as an artist.’ I feel like I changed hip-hop. I haven’t even dropped an album yet. So that goes to show me how powerful my mind is.”
Big Sean’s debut album, Finally Famous, is schedule to finally drop on May 3.