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Wu-Tang Clan Has the Largest Vocabulary In Hip Hop…

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Inspired by the fact that Shakespeare used 28,829 different words in his works, data scientist Matt Daniels decided to analyze the vocabulary of various hip-hop artists.

Matt used token analysis to analyze various artists’ first 35,000 lyrics. Various forms of a word are counted as multiple words, such as “pimpspimppimping, and pimpin”. He used lyrics from Rap Genius as his official source.

Wu-Tang Clan dominated the list, both as a group and in their respective solo careers.  Here’s the list of the wordiest rappers and the number of words in their vocabulary:

1. Aesop Rock: 7,392 words

2. GZA: 6,426

3. Kool Keith: 6,238

4. Canibus: 5,991

5. Cunninlynguists: 5,971

6. RZA: 5,905

7. Wu-Tang Clan: 5,895

8. The Roots: 5,803

9. Ghostface Killah: 5,774

10. Killah Priest: 5,737



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Comments (5)
  1. mdti

    that article “ain’t nuthing ta F wit”

  2. Kdub

    No Beastie boys in this analysis? They are pretty wordy

  3. Bluestone

    Wha??? No El-P??? I’m speechless….

  4. huh?

    i’m not connecting the title of this article with being #7 on the list

  5. 5crnrs

    eeeeh… the title…


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