Rappers Who Have a Larger Vocabulary Than Shakespeare

What's This?

By Brian Koerber2014-05-05 22:46:53 UTC

Forget style, speed and Grammys, this rappers ranking examines vocabulary size.

Designer, coder and data scientist Matt Daniels compared the linguistic abilities of 85 hip hop artists, citing Shakespeare's massive vocabulary as the inspiration.

See also: The History of Hip Hop, Played on Bottles

Using token analysis, Daniels compared the artists' first 35,000 lyrics of their first three to five full-length albums, EPs and mix tapes to find out how many unique words each used.

Click on the graphic below to check out the interactive version.

Image: Matt Daniels

1. 


2. 


3. 


4. 


5. 


6. 


7. 


8. 


9. 


10. 


11. 


12. 


13. 


14. 


15. 


16. 


17. 


18. 


19. 


20. 


21. 


22. 


23. 


24. 


25. 

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Topics: chart, Conversations, Entertainment, hip-hop, interactive, Music, rapper, Shakespeare, vocabulary