Data scientist Matt Daniels looked at the first 35,000 lyrics on the albums of 85 popular rappers to determine who has the biggest vocabulary in all of hip-hop. When it comes to a clear winner, it wasn’t even close. Aesop Rock and his 7,392 unique words were the most in hip-hop—even more than Shakespeare or Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, both benchmarks on the chart. Members of the Wu-Tang Clan followed Aesop Rock, and were some of the only artists to break the 5,700-word threshold. Ruff Ryders rapper and occasional actor DMX came in dead last with his 3,214 words. Over on Daniels’ website (please note: some salty language at the link), you can see an in-depth, interactive breakdown of how all 85 rappers ranked …
