Over the past few decades, rap music has been through numerous shifts and evolutions. Even as certain genres increase or decrease in popularity, the absolute fastest rappers will always have a unique skill that makes them stand apart.
There is some debate over who deserves the title of fastest rapper in the world. Of well-known rappers, the general consensus is that Twista is historically the fastest, with a Guinness Book of World Records entry to prove it. The likes of Busta Rhymes, Eminem, Tech N9ne, and Dizzee Rascal are also in the discussion, displaying incredible speed in their tracks.
To learn more about some of the fastest rappers performing today, keep reading.
Rapping Speed
Traditionally, rap lyrics have been matched with beats and rapping quickly was often a side effect of using rapping over a quicker beat. Over time, many rap artists moved away from this more rigid structure and have rapped their lyrics with so much speed that they leave the beat of their backing track behind, creating an entirely new rhythm through vocalization rather than letting the beats dictate their timing.
There are two simple ways we can measure rap speed. The first is total words per song, which gives a good idea of how many words a rapper can squeeze into a few minutes. A better indicator of how complicated somebody’s rap is and how quickly they can deliver it is syllables per minute, which really gives an idea of how quickly rappers can deliver their words.
Who is the Fastest?
There are many rappers with a claim at being the fastest but the Guinness Book of World Records only names one. The 1992 edition listed Twisted as the quickest rapper, able to rap at 11.2 syllables per second. It’s possible this is outdated in 2020 but there’s no doubt that Twista is still one of the fastest rappers around and is one of the early kings of speed rapping.
However, Eminem also earned a spot in a later version of the book with his hit “Rap God”, featuring 1,560 words in its six minutes, an average of more than four words per second. Speed hasn’t been a focus of Eminem’s work for much of his career but the occasional intense track like “Rap God” is a strong reminder of just how technically gifted he really is.
Both Busta Rhymes and Dizzee Rascal have displayed amazing speed in their music, rapping at about three and a half words per second but even they are generally a little slower than the other names in this article, a mark of how unbelievably fast Twista and Eminem both are.
Tech N9ne is arguably the fastest rapper in the game today, despite not receiving the same official recognition as Twista and Eminem. His track “Worldwide Choppers” boasts 1543 words in five and a half minutes. He’s capable of delivering about 13 syllables per second, making him the unofficial king of speed rap.
It’s hard to really point to one person as the fastest rapper in the world. After all, recording a great rap track is about more than just speed and it’s important to strike a balance between how many words can be crammed into its runtime and how many should be.
All of the rappers mentioned in this article are masters of delivering an unbelievable amount of lyrics with clarity, consistency, and impact.
There are countless other rappers out there, both known and unknown, who can probably stake their claim at being the fastest but it’s impossible to know who really deserves that title without organizing some sort of speed rap battle. Getting all these rappers together for that kind of tournament seems unlikely; after all, they’re all too busy making music.