Rap judges, bloggers and critics—listen up! We as a hip hop community need to stop leaving Carl Terrell Mitchell out of Hall of Fame conversations. Yes, I’m talking about Platinum-selling, Guinness World Record holding artist, Mista Tung Twista. It almost seems like the whole culture caught amnesia after his platinum selling album, Kamikaze, peaked at number one on the Billboard 200 and Top R&B/HipHop Albums in 2004. That same project also consisted of three singles that earned Billboard real estate in “Slow Jamz,” featuring Kanye West and Jamie Foxx, “Overnight Celebrity” and “So Sexy” featuring fellow Chicagoan, R. Kelly. His follow-up 2005 album, The Day After, produced by Pharrell, also found success, earning Gold-status by the Recording Industry Association of America (ya’ll remember Chocolate Fe’s and Redbones, don’t play). So why do we continue to gloss over his career as if it never happened? Can you name a less-than-stellar Twista verse? And, please, do we even have to discuss Adrenaline Rush? We’re talking about the artist that tattooed his name into world history after spewing out 598 syllables in less than a minute—as a teenager. We’re talking about the artist that ran the baton home in classic tracks like “Po Pimp” with Do or Die, lyrically undressed women in “Freaky Thangs” with Ludacris and rode with you through the hood blowin’ doja in “It Feels So Good”. Twista harnessed rapid rhyme schemes; but he can also kick the slow flow, represented on the track, “One Last Time,”
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