Big Daddy Kane

Rolling Stone magazine ranked his song "Ain\'t No Half-Steppin\'" #25 on its list of The 50 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of All Time, calling him "a master wordsmith of rap\'s late-golden age and a huge influence on a generation of MCs."\n', '

In 1984, Kane became friends with Biz Markie, and he would co-write some of Biz\'s best-known lyrics. Both eventually became important members of the Queens-based Juice Crew, a collective headed by renowned producer Marley Marl. Kane signed with Tyrone Williams’s (Marl’s manager) and Len Fichtelberg’s Cold Chillin\' Records label in 1987 and debuted the same year with the 12" single "Raw," which was an underground hit. Kane is known for his ability to syncopate over faster hip hop beats, and despite his asthmatic condition he is acknowledged as one of the pioneering masters of fast rhyming. His sense of style is renowned and set a number of late-1980s…