What is the best hip hop lyric of all time?

I said-a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie To the hip hip hop-a you don't stop the rock It to the bang-bang boogie, say up jump the boogie To the rhythm of the boogie, the beat

I’ve always thought this was a pretty good one:

real G's move in silence like lasagna

They call me the Hiphopopotamus

My lyrics are bottomless

On Doomsday, ever since the womb ‘Til I’m back where my brother went, that’s what my tomb will say

Right above my government; Dumile. Either unmarked or engraved, hey, who’s to say?

-MF Doom, Doomsday

I really love the wordplay with his government name 'Dumile' having a double meaning of 'Doom'll lay'. There are a bunch of other MF Doom lyrics in contention for goat status, in my opinion.

fuck tha police

I like big butts and I cannot lie

Or

when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face you get sprung

Really that whole song is a masterpiece.

fuckin magnets how do they work?

Ice cream scoopin', shittin' poopin', shittin', poopin'

But more seriously, MF DOOM (RIP) is one of my favourite artists, but he's been covered in a few comments already. But one of my favourites from him is:

Getting paid like a biker with the best crank
Spray it like a high-ranked sniper in the West Bank

interior crocodile alligator, I drive a Chevrolet movie the-atre

"In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey"

Head to Bali, smoking cuban cigars, And we fuck up the party like acoustic guitars

"fuck up the party like acoustic guitars" always cracked me up so much.

"I bomb atomically, Socrates' philosophies and hypotheses can't define how I be dropping these mockeries"

As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my life and realize there's nothing left.

Real Gs move in silence like lasagna.

Any couplet from Warren G's Regulate.

I don't know if it's the best of all time, but I really enjoy this from Common ('Sixth Sense’):

I start thinking, how many souls hip-hop has affected
How many dead folks this art resurrected
How many nations this culture connected
Who am I to judge one's perspective?
Though some of that shit y'all pop true it, I ain't relating
If I don't like it, I don't like it, that don't mean that I'm hating

One for the money, two for the better green

3,4 Methylenedioxymethamphetamine

The Drop [Intro] Victor, a stranger to see you Who that? Who that, who that?

[Verse: Viktor Vaughn] If I'm not working or putting work in I'm either wheeling and dealing, or probably jerkin my— Yep—listening to nothing, taking no suggestions Or destructive criticisms, that can't improve on perfection Rock a crowd in sections on a good night, the hoes fight Always get the dough first then everything else goes right At least that's what they say and who the fuck is they? Make a hick say “what the hey?” brought that chick from sick bay Ensign, he shoulda asked his upperclassmen Before he bust blast em, never trust no Cardassians Captain’s log supplemental The Klingons are now aboard the Enterprise rental vessal On my cue, photon torpedo Oh and if I'm not on the block with Jorgito And so on for the street though, smoke a pound of leek though I'm jokin on the fact that hip-hop has gone freakshow Don't let the drama get you In the only genre of music where the fans shoot the messenger removed niggas talk behind your back like a catcher Either M-Y-O-B or B-Y-O-stretcher In that order: man, woman, son, daughter The beat sound like they underwater, make it fun to slaughter Even if you hear some wack shit you never give a chance Some shit sound like all you could do off it is river-dance It's not a hobby, don't be sloppy Doing deals with these labels is likened to a botched robbery Nobody supposed to get bodied, golly! This shit is like a folly 'bout to cold flip, probably It's not me, he got ill spills knot in Brooknam Where even though kids kill they still chill and look calm While working on new developments for the book bomb In one bad experiment, it blew and took a hooker arm ("Arm and leg") BOW! look mom, no hand Studied black magic for years out in no man's land It's like a barbecue, all-swine cookout To fuck up they plans like a blind man lookout Cram to overstand it, peep it and absorb it The same way he keep all the planets in they proper orbit Norbit, y'all better off going corporate Nobody wanna hear that bullshit it's too morbid There's no prints, he hold the mic with a mic glove And rolls dolo from state to state like Ike Love Like on top of the world loser keep it gully Rap creeps seem they got too much juice in they belly It's why they brung V he still hungry And spit something thick on the mic like a lungy Mind ya daughter she on line for the water To get lucky like when she find a quarter kinda sorta Remember me God, clean timbs with emery board? He only came to save the game like a memory card Ooh shrewd, a lot of crews is too rude And it's way too many let's not and say we do dudes He said 24-7 I be on call He use his vacation days to watch Babylon fall Numbskulls.. get to stepping they dumb dull And how he rep the mic is like the weapon from Krull Cats be like "what's wrong with your man black?" Biohazard suit and Van Grack for the anthrax Jeez and can't get no peace Form blazin sword for the police robeast Cochise, write a rhyme like a book report And sell it to a rookie you could tell by the hook he bought You ain't know he sell hooks and choruses? They couldn't bang the slang if they looked in thesauruses It's like a friendly game of dodge ball Oddball God y'all, who played the garage wall With the Stan Smith's checkerboard lace And the brand new INF they ain't check the boy waist You saw his face? so who next to get they neck chopped Or popped like a Beck's top, respect the drop It's too much wreck hops Who next to get they neck chopped Or popped like a Beck's top, respect the drop Woopdie-do flows do fifty like a hooptie do Groupie crews try to figure out from what coop he flew They out of place, beats sounds like outer space With no time to waste he was Audi without a trace

It drops deep as it does in my breath. I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death.

One for the money, two for the better green / 3-4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine

If you got bad breath then maybe try Scope

And if you wash your ass you best use soap

Picture this I'm a bag of dicks Put me to your lips I am sick I will punch a baby bear in his shit

My dandy voice makes the most anti-choice granny's panties moist

You're waxin' your modem, tryin' to make it go faster

Hey fella, I bet you're still livin' in your parents' cellar

Downloadin' pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar And postin' "Me too!" like some brain-dead AOL-er

I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller

You're just about as useless as jpegs to Hellen Keller

My love is like lightening. It gives girls orgasms. My dick is like an airplane. It gives girls orgasms.

What good is takin' over When we know what you gon' do? The only real revolution happens right inside of you

I'm sorry, Puff, but I don't give a fuck
If this chick was my own mother, I'd still fuck her with no rubber
And cum inside her and have a son and a new brother
At the same time and just say that it ain't mine—what's my name?

"Who's that peekin' in my window? Pow! Nobody now"

"I take seven kids from columbine, stand'em all in line, add an ak-47 a revolver, a nine, a mac-11 and it'll solve a problem of mine and that's a whole school of bully's shot up all at one time."

So this lyric is notable, not just for being edgy, but also because it was a product of it's time. It was published during the height of tipper gore and hillary clinton trying to appease the "moral majority" by attempting to censor rap music which is called out in the album.

Ultimately the lyric is self-censored because while the artist could have gotten away with it, the label was playing it safe, even though nothing about the lyric would have tripped the moral panic alarm. After all the rapper was white referencing a white event.

Step up in this motherfucker just a-swingin' my hair.

"Life's not a removed, life is a beautiful woman. You only call her a removed 'cause she won't let you get that pussy." - _Daylight_Aesop Rock

Biggie: "Fuck the state pen, fuck hoes at Penn State" or "Now honeys play me close like butter play toast"

"Dead in the middle of Little Italy, little did we know that we riddled some middlemen who didn't do diddily."

I seen his feet and they both lefty

He's only steppin half correctly

“I used to drive a dinger with the dents in, now it’s pearlescent, and the bonnet got the vents in.” - (Bonnet = hood of a car)

Have you ever had sex with a pharaoh?

I put that pussy in a sarcophagus

We got the guillotine We got the guillotine, you better run

Mom’s spaghetti

Now I play hard like my girl's nipples be

The game sour like a pickle be

Sure do two 22’s in my shoes

I was raised in the city...shitty..ever since i was an iddy biddy kiddy drinking liquor out my mama's tiddy.

I overheard my mother singing some song and a line about "getting more ass than a toilet seat"

I don't know what it's from but that is an immaculate lyric.

"England is my city"

or

"Thats an awfully hot coffee pot"

I'll rip a tree out the ground and flip it upside down 'Fore I turn over a new leaf, clown

"Luda, Jada and Nas // and our bullets give you a deep tissue massage // so here's a song and dance while I make these ends // you never stood half a chance like Siamese Twins."

Maybe I am the ballot in the box / the bullet in the gun / the inner glow that lets you know to call your brother son and really that whole theme song.

Swagger tighter then a yeast infection
\ Fly go hard like geese erection
\ Fashion patrol police detection
\ I stay tight like Chinese connection

Dr. Carter by Lil Wayne

Honey, check it out you got me mesmerized

With your black hair and fat-ass thighs

I only wish I could find someone someday who will think of such romantic things to say to me...

Bear witness to the sickest shot while suckers get romantic

They ain't gonna send us campin' like they did my man Fred Hampton

Still we lampin', still clockin' dirt for our sweat

A ballot's dead, so a bullet's what I get

A thousand years they had the tools, we should be takin' 'em

Fuck the G-ride, I want the machines that are makin' 'em

X gon' give it to ya Fuck waiting for you to get it on your own X gon' deliver to ya Knock knock, open up the door, it's real Wit the non-stop, pop pop of stainless steel