Greatest Rapper Alive?

Lil Wayne stirred up the hip hop pot a few months ago when he committed hip hop blasphemy by claiming he was now better than his former favorite rapper Jay Z. I've been resisting the urge to do a Lil Wayne post for about as long as the debate about his newly acquired skills has been going on. Partly because I'm sick of hearing him on every damn record under the sun and also because I don't see what the big fuss is. Lil Wayne is a good rapper. There's no denying the fact that he has catapulted himself into an elite group of rappers that have a devout following. Greatest rapper alive? No. Last time I checked Nas, Jay Z, Common and Black Thought were all still alive and breathing. And frankly, there will never be a "greatest rapper alive" because the claim is too relative. But in my book to even be considered in that top bracket, you have to acknowledge the artists' entire body of work. Clearly, Wayne is nowhere close to etching his name into my top 10. His career pre-The Carter is mediocre at best. Granted his last two efforts and everything in between has been entertaining but I'm still not ready to crown him king. The Carter III, as my homie Randy said will be a pivotal moment in Weezy's campaign. Until then I look at Lil Wayne as another rapper in an industry where talentless dirtbags like Jim Jones are praised for trivial and thoughtless records. That's not to say that Wayne is talentless but I need to hear him make some conceptual records. I need to hear his storytelling abilities. I need to hear him rap about something other than being the president of a washed up, desolate record label or about how much money he has or how much weed he smokes. Wayne has the potential to be this generation's Jay Z or Nas but first he has to more than release 50 mixtapes of him rhyming aimlessly on other peoples records. Give me a Reasonable Doubt, an Illmatic, an Only Built for Cuban Linx, a Muddy Waters, I need that classic album before I can really consider Wayne.