The Largest Vocabulary In Hip Hop Rappers, ranked by the number of unique words used in their lyrics

This project was originally published in 2014 and recently updated in January 2019 with newer lyrics data and 75 additional artists, including Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Yachty, Migos, and 21 Savage. It compares the number of unique words used by some of the most famous artists in hip hop (that is, an example of a quantitive view of lyricism, once proposed by Tahir Hemphill). I used each artist’s first 35,000 lyrics. This way, prolific artists, such as Jay-Z, can be compared to newer artists, such as Drake.

# of Unique Words Used Within Artist’s First 35,000 Lyrics Notes/sources: All lyrics are via Genius.

35,000 words covers 3 to 5 studio albums and EPs. I included mixtapes if the artist was short of the 35,000 words. Quite a few rappers don’t have enough official material to be included (for example, Biggie, Chance the Rapper, Queen Latifah, and El-P). Since the original release, there’s now a notable trend of fewer unique words among newer artists. This is easier to see in the following chart, where I highlighted each artist’s primary decade, based on album release dates for their vocabulary calculation (the first 35,000 lyrics).

# of Unique Words Used Within Artist’s First 35,000 lyrics by era1 1980s| 1990s| 2000s| 2010s Notes/sources: (1) Since this analysis uses an artist’s first 35,000 lyrics (prioritizing studio albums), an artist’s era is determined by the years the albums were released. Some artists may be identified with a certain era (for example, Jay-Z with the 1990s, with Reasonable Doubt in 1996, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 in 1997, etc.) yet continue to release music in the present day. All lyrics are via Genius.

Some of the newer artists wield a smaller vocabulary comparatively, but this is not because hip hop has “dumbed down.” The genre has evolved; it has moved away from complex lyricism toward elements traditionally associated with pop music: repetitive song structure and singing (Joe Carmanica recently wrote about this trend for the New York Times, arguing that it was led by Drake, who popularized the rapping-and-singing formula over the past decade). A better benchmark for Lil Uzi Vert’s word count (2,556) might be those of pop artists, such as Beyonce (2,433 words), or even one his major influences: Marilyn Manson (2,466 words). There are also genre-bending artists. If Childish Gambino’s Awaken, My Love! is less hip hop in the traditional ’90s boom-bap sense, is it fair to compare it to vocabulary-dense Wu-Tang albums? Genre matters in vocabulary calculations—check out the chart below, which takes 500 random samples of 35,000 words from rock, country, and hip hop.

# of Unique Words Used in 500 Random Samples of 35,000 Lyrics from Country, Rock, Hip Hop