- 6/19/2025
In today's episode of Billboard Unfiltered, Billboard staffers Carl Lamarre, Angel Diaz, and special guest, Rapsody, debate who the best rapper/producer duo are. Moderated by Billboard’s Delissa Shannon, each hip-hop expert gives their hot take on Snoop Dogg & Dr. Dre, Nas & Hit-Boy and more!
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00:00what is up y'all this is billboard unfiltered where we discuss hot button topics each person
00:07gets 90 seconds for their opening statements we battle it out i get to decide who has the best
00:12points and then whoever takes the crown gets to give their unfiltered take today our panelists
00:18are mr carl lamar senior director of rmba hip-hop here angel diaz hip-hop editor and legendary mc
00:26rhapsody so today we are going to be discussing best rapper producer duo all right carl i'm gonna
00:35have you take it away first 90 seconds on the clock take it away first off you know happy juneteenth
00:41week to my people um i think this is a pretty it's it's gonna throw people off a little bit but hear
00:49me out here i think the best combination duo is naz and hip boy and the reason why i say that is
00:56because i think they both came together and in a time where they needed each other naz i love you
01:02my brother he knows the vibes he was coming off two misses in terms of nazir and lost tapes too
01:12hip boy was in a weird place where you know obviously niggas in paris did his thing he was
01:17still trying to find his groove and he started to do that when he won the grammy for nipsy rip nip
01:22but when they came into into into each other's lives i think they changed the dynamic of what hip-hop
01:28is today in terms of what we look at from a rapper and producer standpoint 36 months from two from 2020
01:36to 23 we saw the best rapping of naz's career five projects king's disease is probably one of the best
01:44series in hip-hop of all time magic one and two flawless we introduced naz into you know a new
01:51era in terms of working with different rappers working with asap rocky working with fabio foreign
01:56asap ferg some of the best beats in hit boys career came from working with naz and they got a grammy
02:03out of it in 2025 projects in 36 months immaculate work great work there i have to say uh and i also want to
02:12say thank you for taking that time at the top to shout out juneteenth i appreciate you for that
02:17that was gracious of you to use some of your seconds of your 90-second opening statement so appreciate
02:22you shout out do i got an extra six seconds absolutely not okay angel we got you on the
02:28clock let me reset you 90 seconds take it away uh my pick uh for best rapper producer combos
02:34is a no-brainer i'm gonna go with snoop and dre i think uh remember growing up in 94 watching uh you
02:43know when the chronic came out and stuff like that so they had the chronic and doggy style back to back
02:48then they came back with 2001 um yeah i mean they put the west coast on the map right and uh kendrick is
02:57doing that now so i don't know i don't can i can i give up my rest of my time like i don't know like
03:03what else am i supposed to say about snooping great like i don't know what else to say
03:12i see it all right rhapsody you got 90 seconds starting now
03:18all right this is tough there are a lot of great duos i had i wrote my list down it was long but i'm
03:23gonna have to go with pharrell and eclipse right you had a a great point with uh with hit boy and naz
03:31my rebuttal would be it's still not naz's best project of his whole career that was my only thing
03:37um with the clips and pharrell from uh their first project lord willing to this one that i haven't
03:47heard at all but it's setting up to be a phenomenal classic and i think when you get a producer
03:53and a rapper duo and both of them are performing at like this is the return of the clips of this
04:00also kind of the return of pharrell like pharrell hadn't been out in a minute and they're both
04:06it's like they've evolved and haven't missed a step like this ain't um this ain't gonna be a miss
04:12we could feel the energy is not gonna be a miss so for me like when you have two a rapper and a
04:18producer come together and they always create their best work together it's undeniable there are rappers
04:24that can go work with other producers and be like yo you still got some joints it's still hot but those
04:29two that's always their best work to me and my point so i would say the clips and pharrell are unbeatable
04:38in the duo okay i like these opening statements they're all very different they have different
04:45perspectives for sure and i feel like i'm really excited to debate but i do want to let y'all know
04:50these bullshit buzzers that we got here can only be used once throughout carl can only be used once
04:57throughout this conversation okay everybody agrees to the terms and the conditions right i agree all right
05:02i guess were you trying to i was i was i was yeah i was i was tempted but you know you're my sister
05:09so i let it rock don't hey it ain't no yeah i feel like okay yeah yeah because i got i got some things
05:14to say say the for both of y'all um i agree with you in the sense that you know the the king's disease
05:22series magic wanted to of course not in the realm of naz's best project because i wanted to hit
05:29bullshit but no no but but i was trying to follow the rules but there's a difference i i agree there's
05:35a difference i think king's disease one in the series itself is probably the most important along
05:43with lmatic in terms of y'all heard the when it came to naz back in the day and i was listening to
05:49king's disease three yesterday i forget it was the first i think it was first time and he was saying
05:54how like yo niggas used to shit on him and say yo i can't choose good beats if that king's disease
06:00series and him not working with hip boy on magic one or two did not happen that stain would still be
06:06there for him he's still an all-time great but now he finally eliminated that whole argument of yo i
06:13can't pick good beats because hip boy gave him some of the best beats of his fucking life and naz
06:19was right there choosing those beats so clearly now they're not a brother could pick some beats
06:39now eclipse the only thing with demma pharrell and i argue the same thing with with snoop and dre
06:44again we got five albums worth of naz and hip boy strictly in 36 months still not as good as
06:53the chronic or doggy style though so i don't know 36 months i don't know those came out like 50 years
06:59ago you know i'm saying i don't know i don't know you can't come on though you saw 36 i know because
07:05but it's easy it's easy for a brother to work out and rap correct me if i'm wrong a brother could take
07:11his time on a debut album you could take all the time in the world you could take your time on any
07:15album i mean that wasn't his debut though like he he was he built nwa left that alone went and started
07:22death row and came with the chronic like people thought he it was over for him you know what i'm
07:27saying and i think too with naz and hit i think they proved that especially with naz going into his 50th
07:36year in in life that age ain't nothing but a number when it comes to this hip-hop there was
07:42talk online um since he's been dropping these projects that he's caught up to hold for maybe
07:48even surpassed him are we i mean do we are we talking do you say that to put it not to me
07:55you know what i'm saying like i'm saying this is the discussion on um on social media you cannot
08:02that doesn't mean that doesn't mean that i that i agree you know what i mean yeah but you see you
08:07see how but you see how he's how he's like you know i'm grim i'm grimacing only because because
08:12what gets me tight with hove and hope could do anything he wants he's the goat so he hasn't
08:17dropped a project since 444 and that was 2017 2018 that's why i'm kind of i'm kind of like i love
08:24hove but you got a cast like naz again now five albums in 36 months a couple of them were grammy
08:30nominated too right and he got his first grammy and that's the main thing i want to drive home too
08:35i think that that that duo that dynamic duo is so important they saved each other and elevated their
08:41status even more especially with that grammy when naz was like 0 for 12. but that's not and i'm not
08:48saying the grammy's the end all be all that's what i'm saying not at all but i know how elusive it was
08:53so matic wasn't nominated for grammy absolutely yeah that ain't a stat right
08:58i mean but i'm saying for naz but no no for naz
09:12but i'm saying for naz and i remember talking to him and hip boy about it at the grammy museum
09:16that one that win hit differently for him because he he wanted to feel seen culturally he felt seen
09:23but by the committee that went changed his mind in terms of feeling seen the guy in the right but
09:28the last you know maybe five six they've been trying at least say and remember the category he
09:33was in that was a real hip-hop year he went against freddie gibbs he once again raced the five nine
09:38j electronica that that was a hip-hop and jay-z collab album you know nobody's dating the album
09:45it wasn't good the album was phenomenal he's just saying yeah we're talking about best duos
09:50so let's stay on top and we got five out and we got five out of here
09:53i love classic project project the project i use my boy you had some great points but you lost me
10:08you took a left how many albums how many albums did your pharrell and clips do hey sometimes you
10:14only need two baby or he'll still eating off his education because nobody has ever made one like
10:20it i want to say you're right and the impact is the impact and i'm not saying king's disease is not
10:24impact because it's a great conversation because there's so many amazing projects but somebody got
10:29to win that's all i'm saying the only the only caveat for the clips and pharrell though is those first two
10:34albums it was with the neptunes it wasn't just pharrell oh got them i mean that's the only got
10:39them no i don't got them shout out to chad i'm just saying this is a little a little
10:44a little this this next album is with pharrell
10:50he kind of got you with that one no he didn't no it's still the sound the third yeah
10:56the third album they had different producers right right right yeah i don't know he got he got
11:01he got to derail the argument right now we'll say that i didn't derally it was just a little it's
11:05like a little about a little like footnote beat makers pharrell is still a very integral part of
11:11producing a record first we need to understand the difference in beat makers and producers
11:16number one that's fair so you can make all the dope beats you want if you know how to produce no record
11:20produce no album executive produce no album what we talking about here and and and by the way give me
11:26some bonus points you mentioned 2001 i'm not nah nah i'm not giving that to snoop that was all dre
11:37that was all dre no but i i brought i just brought 2001 up because snoop was like all over that he was
11:42like his ghost face uh only built for cuban links right like snoop was like featured on a bunch of those
11:48records how many like it was like four three i'm talking about full-fledged one two punch we got
11:55that with naz and hip boy chronic and doggy style again two projects i'm giving you five
12:01of strictly naz and it's a duo we're talking duo right and i they still don't stack up to lord
12:07willing he'll have no fury chronic and free chad hugo shout out to chad hugo that's all i'm saying
12:15because he said neptunes he said shout out to chad hugo because he played an integral role in that
12:20yeah and so you might as well have said clips and neptunes see that see the difference but when
12:27you're in the studio you're making beats sometimes sometimes you got to chad in there to come play
12:31that bass or something you might not shout them out i'm also i'm also i'm gonna say that chad is
12:39a man let's never but it's still it's still a sound i still think pharrell still holds the neptune sound
12:46we're not gonna take that away i mean i listen to the album and it's there's this uh parts of this
12:52you can hear some that's neptunes right and to be fair this new album that's coming next month it is
12:58purely it's all pharrell pharrell and clips and he did his thing like i couldn't and so i will so
13:04let's negate and i love laura whalen let's let's let's let's negate the first two albums because it
13:09was a neptunes produced album like i said i gave you five i gave you strictly five nas and hip boy
13:16projects to the five i want to hear from you angel because you something that's interesting to me about
13:22your argument is you are kind of talking about the west coast like this is that's what i heard from
13:29what you said talk to me more about that because i wasn't there so i want to i give that to me give
13:38me that so from what i you know because i'm i'm old so uh from what i remember you seasoned yeah so
13:46i mean nwa when they first came out um i was super young still but i remember you know everybody
13:51talking about gangster rap like um snoop dogg was like on the cover i think of newsweek or time or
13:56something like that um they were trying to act like he was like this villain or whatever um and
14:02the nwa was kind of like in your face or whatever but the chronic he came with g-funk right with like
14:08warren g like that warren g influence and um he kind of uh i mean we still seeing that sound now when
14:15you listen to gnx there's like remnants of of g-funk and the bay area stuff um so he put like
14:24west coast was running was running can i curse yeah yeah like west coast was running
14:28shit right he came out with the chronic doggy style death row was taking over everything
14:34and then bad boy came with the with the flashier the shiny suits and all that stuff so during that
14:40period early 90s like the west coast was on top kind of like how they are now the only thing the
14:46west coast really just has kendrick as opposed to like death row was like a whole label in the early
14:5290s yeah that's that's true but not all of them are front well school boy so yeah school boy absolutely
15:00that helped your point for me because you talked about how the remnants of what because that's what i
15:05was missing from your argument it was the remnants of what snoop and dre did and how it's still here
15:10because i think that's where your points were really strong to me so i want to give you all 30 seconds
15:15right carl we're gonna have you start with your 30 seconds 30 seconds to give your final he gonna
15:21mention them five albums again 30 30 seconds for that 36 months five album run give me the last i'm
15:27i'm just gonna debunk really quick you know shout out to my brother angel being a historian notice he
15:34mentioned the first two albums he didn't mention that missionary album that did not chart in the
15:39top 10. i don't even think i'll listen to that there we go one my sister rhapsody was talking about
15:46again skateboard p and clips but shout out to free chad hugo that's a neptunes album i gave you a dynamic
15:54duo grammy award-winning dynamic duo you over here on his time
16:00i'm bad the debunking of the myths all right angel you got 30 seconds take it away all right so my
16:14whole thing comparing two albums to five is i've always been a quality over quantity guy
16:23you know and those are two all-time classic albums and i'm gonna throw 2001 in there that's three all-time
16:28classic albums that they've they worked on with together you know i'm saying and you can still
16:34hear that sound today what 30 40 years later in nipsey uh tde so yeah you know i mean drain snoop it's
16:45just hard to debate that you know what i'm saying all right rhapsody 30 seconds you know i respect
16:54everybody's arguments these are great points you know this is very hard to argue but i'm still
16:59coming out on top you know what i'm saying because neptunes or not is still the sound of what pharrell
17:05creates so we're gonna stand on that i wish that this had came out after the eclipse's whole album
17:11but i think one impact great impact but this is going to shift culture i think in a major way the same
17:18way lord willing shifted culture sound wise when them trash can drums came on i'm keep talking um
17:26and everybody's in a frenzy right now same way but may the best man or woman win
17:32they're doing an old school rollout too they've been rolling it out for like two years so i that's
17:38this is actually really really hard because i was not expecting y'all to come from such three different
17:43perspectives that i find value in right here we have this i love that you mentioned that 36
17:51month strong five like that damn and the fact that you said that they needed each other okay yes angel
17:57when you're talking about the fact that we have snoop and dre where they came when they came how they
18:03came and how we're still feeling it now it just brings me back to that super bowl performance and
18:07just being like damn they really did that i wasn't there but i know that they did that the culture
18:13shifted and then rap when you're talking about the moment that we're feeling right now that fervor
18:18that we haven't felt in hip-hop in a minute from a rapper producer duo ah this is so hard this is so
18:27this is so hard but i think i have to go with my gut and my gut is saying that carl took it
18:37oh my god carl you argue that one carl you argue that one you are you
18:42you are you i'm not excited i'm not excited i'm not excited i wanted to win really bad carl argued that
18:50went down okay so we got you have 60 seconds oh we got to talk your okay let's do it 60 seconds on the
18:58clock you get to talk on this show oh yeah all y'all was talking all y'all was talking
19:03me with a hot mic me with a hot mic i thought i was gonna win 60 i have paid for you too no
19:10and first i'm gonna do use my 60 seconds i could go okay boom i want to give a quick shout out
19:16because this was in the back of my mind too as you guys were talking shout out to to drake and 40
19:20because that sound that duo is nasty you know i wanted to deviate a little bit but i'm gonna talk
19:27my shit and i'm gonna say this man i shout out to the r&b cats you know y'all know i love r&b i feel
19:32like and this is for the r&b brothers out here man we need to get back into dancing i miss my r&b
19:39brothers that were out here pop locking dancing the bobby browns my prerogative the chris browns
19:46you know what i'm saying and i see some flashes here and there shout out to our r&b
19:50rookie of the month uh jaydon he signed to usher in la reed at mega he is a triple threat his dance
19:56is on point shout out to josh levi he got a new record called don't go and guess what they doing
20:01they little i'm saying a little b2k shit i miss when r&b cats used to dance let's bring the dancing
20:08brad you know i'm saying let's bring a marion with the dancing shit back chris brown out here pop
20:12locking in stadiums let's do that it's because they ain't yearning for real man there's no real
20:17lovers no real youngers i thought you were going to talk about your love life but oh no no we're
20:22keeping it off we ain't gonna do that we'll talk about that when the cameras go down yeah we ain't
20:27gonna do that we'll talk about that when the cameras go down we'll talk about that but to get us out of
20:31this i want to know about what who would y'all like to see collaborate rapper duo each each of y'all do
20:38y'all have someone that you would really like to see get in the studio well yeah um when i first
20:44when they told me to be on the show i kind of confused things and i thought it was like a wish
20:49list so my wish list my my wish is megan um and cardo to link up and make some like texas uh slab
20:58music you know what i'm saying like i think cardo he's very versatile with his beats um and you know
21:04megan i feel like i always like the way megan raps in her flow i just wish that she would kind of lean
21:10into like the texas sound a little more you know i like that i like that that'd be a dope duo yeah
21:16um it kind of came to me as he was talking i would probably go and shout out to my brother joey badass
21:23for the run he's had this year and keeping us relevant as a city i would kind of want to see joey
21:29and dj premiere you know i feel like that kind of tandem you know premiere knows how to bring out
21:34the best lyrically out of cats and i think what joey was able to do against his war with the west
21:40coast and joey has shined you know on these kind of boom bad beat shout out to dj static selector
21:45but you get dj premiere who's a god tier i think he'll bring bring the best out of joey
21:51i would say myself but i'm already living it shots to mad lib hey you picked this up um i'm having a
22:00great time working with mad lib but outside of myself i would love to see uh nas and ninth one
22:05to do a project together i think that would be absolutely phenomenal i've worked with ninth he's
22:10an amazing another amazing producer um and i just like to hear what that sounds like
22:15hell speaking of primo he's doing a tape with rock marciano oh jesus he's like producing a whole tape
22:22and one other thing going back to last week you guys were talking about the carter
22:26i think lil wayne should like he should like let west side gun executive produce a tape for him
22:32i think he needs to go back to like the mixtape like a like the major like an artist of his stature
22:40it's like what naz did like you don't have to play that major label game anymore like you could just
22:44make the music that you want to make i'm surprised you didn't want him to lean more into i thought
22:48him and manny him and manny would be great too um yeah as long as as long as gun executive produces
23:01everything because gun doesn't produce right so like he could link them up with whoever shout out
23:06mr porter super underrated no super super i'm working with him now like his bag is crazy he's
23:13right he's not getting enough light and recognition but i think that's about to change so well talk
23:18about this madlib project and talk about your collaboration together yo madlib been at the top
23:23of my list for for many years so you know after we finished the please don't cry run everybody was
23:28like what you want to do and i have worked with like s1 i worked with eric g and major 7 i had like all
23:35these songs from these different producers i was like man i just want to do a bunch of eps with
23:39producers so then like sing your list and madlib was on my list shout out to uh saleem at rock who
23:45connected us um and you know madly was going through some things his house burned down studio lost some
23:51things but he sent me uh a folder 54 beats and like every single one just had my head spinning like
24:01like but it's i think it's just something the way he makes music like some of these are not even
24:09samples it's just the musicality and and the stories that he tells and just he takes you somewhere
24:16different frequency wise like i think it just really caters to my style too and what i like um and yeah we
24:23just having fun you know yeah tell me about that that head spinning moment like when you're hearing these
24:30beats like where does your mind go how does that mad live what i've gotten in my folder is his
24:35production is like a movie you know what i'm saying like you're not gonna listen to three minutes of
24:40like the same thing like it'll start somewhere and it'll go somewhere else and it might go somewhere
24:45else and i'm just like yo what is going on here like you know he really takes it takes you on a journey
24:52and a ride and i like that as a storyteller you know to have somewhere to go to just like it's his his
24:58music is visual and that's what's exciting so do you do you uh when you were listening to him like
25:05are you putting together rhymes in your head or do you write them down like what's your process you
25:10know some things are gonna come right off the bat some things you're gonna freestyle to some things
25:14you know i'm gonna take my time and think like how does this make me feel where i don't want to go
25:19i don't like when i'm in the studio and creating i have like i don't have a process it's just like i let
25:24the music guide me i let my day guide me what did i feel that day what i experienced you know and i
25:30just i go from there free space yeah i was gonna say you know your pen has always been super sharp
25:37and i feel like working with somebody like mad how did it elevate that put that was did you feel
25:44some pressure no it was the easiest you know i would be in a studio and you know i have a folder of his
25:50and a folder of this person's and i'd be going through stuff and i always went back to his his
25:55his beats are just pulling a lot out of me in a space where after you know the last project i'm
26:00like where am i about to go but everything was leaning towards those mad lib beats um it's the
26:07space that it provided it was sonically just different drums they they lean different you know
26:14i mean they might not sit straight up they just lean different and it just it allowed me to find
26:18different pockets to play with different cadences to play with my voice it made me want to be
26:23characters in his movie and that was an evolution for me you know one of my pictures is going to be
26:29doom and mad lib too cinematic yeah cinematic for sure i don't know if you've been seeing the
26:35conversation like lately the cat's been talking about like album runs and i think of yours and i think
26:41of layla's wisdom i think of eve and please don't cry like talk about the run you've had like the last seven
26:48eight years because that's an incredible three-peat right there yeah i i mean for me it's like i i
26:57always want to strive for greatness right in the era that i'm in and then the next season it's like okay
27:03how am i growing from the last i i never want to tell the same story i never want people to predict
27:09what i'm going to do next sound wise like it's always of like how we elevate and how we growing like
27:14because i don't i don't want to be complacent ever and i think that's what's what's helped me
27:20you know have a run like that is is i'm not i'm not you know um just come i'm not complacent at all
27:29myself it's like all right you you can do better than that you know um erica has this quote erica
27:36badu that's like my best work is always still in me and you know it's like it absolutely like when you
27:43wake up and look at life like that i don't see how you can't you know create over and over again
27:51at that level you know so i can't wait no i can't wait that's a storyteller that's a storyteller um i'm
27:59really excited for this project and just to see like how it continues to open you up from what you
28:04you've created and how it then gets to sit with us and then what then that reveals to you on the other
28:10side um that's that's really special but um i'm having fun yeah always it's always about having
28:16fun absolutely um can you tell us when it's gonna drop when we can expect something or when does this
28:21air um tonight uh midnight tonight but i mean we're doing something special it won't be on streaming
28:42okay right away eventually but not right away i love that it's like a single drop in tonight vinyl okay
28:48oh yeah let's go ahead and talk about that after i have something i can put it on tonight tonight
28:55all right well thank you so much for coming by thank you for sharing that with us i know we are
29:00all super excited for tonight at 11 59 p.m eastern standard time um shout outs to carl for taking it
29:08today good job you really got me you really sold me hip boy and niles all time is like i respect them
29:15that's kind of crazy yeah you he did he did in fact eat with that i will say um thank you all so much for
29:21tuning in we will see y'all next week and see who takes the crown
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