Appendix A - Kool Mo Dee’s Criteria for Evaluating Emcees
Transcribed from:
Kool Mo Dee (2003). There’s a God on the Mic: The True 50 Greatest MCs. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press.

Battle Skills
Battle skills are about the combination of wit and attack. Attack and set yourself up as the pinnacle, and create threats. It has to do with not only lyrical skills, but also the ability to be witty, funny, and to insult.

Body of Work
Based on the sum total of the artists work and the level of excellence in that work.

Concepts
Regarding MCs for their ability to paint pictures and concepts that are multi-dimensional, and who conceptualize on an album, or during their career.

Flow
Flow has a lot to do with syncopation, how an artist’s cadence flows in and out of multiple records, beats, or tempos.  Those artists who are most versatile with their flow, or that have a flow that absolutely sucks people in get higher scores.

Flavor
This is about an artist’s ability to break out, have fun, and have some kind of signature energy to their rhyme style.

Freestyle
This rates an MCs ability to be able to come off the top of their head with rhymes, spontaneously, on any given subject.

Industry Impact
Industry impact has to do with Grammies, music awards, radio airplay, all the things that the ‘streets’ frowned on at one point, but was very, very necessary for the Hip-Hop game to become the integral part of the music business that it is now.

Live Performance
Lots of MCs make great records, lots of MCs travel around and do rhymes, but when it comes down to doing a performance live, lots of MCs fall short.

Longevity
Recognizes those who can last long in the chaos and confusion known as the music business.

Lyrics
Lyrics, otherwise known as an MCs paradise, are the reason all MCs started rhyming; it’s the essence of the MC.

Originality
How original is the MC? Did the MC create anything or bring anything new to the game that wasn’t there before?

Poetic Value
A lot of MCs rhyme, but don’t add poetic value where the metaphor itself or the story within the metaphor is actually profound.

Social Impact
Recognizes and rewards artists who try to better the community, better the environment, and better the country.

Substance
Rewards MCs whose albums have some kind of social relevance or meaning.

Versatility
Rewards artists that have a range of work that varies and who experiment with their rhymes.

Vocabulary
An artist must be able to utilize vocabulary, and that doesn’t mean that you have to constantly inundate the audience with big words, but as Big Daddy Kane once said, “It’s alright to send someone to the dictionary every now and then.”

Vocal Presence
This category looks at how recognizable an artists voice is the moment someone hears it on a record.