For others, the answers were simple-even with all those songs, there’s a clear order to the best of Jay’s best. For some, it was an impossible ask-by some counts, Jay has appeared on 119 singles throughout his three-decade career, and that’s before counting album cuts and loosies. In an attempt to answer that question, The Ringer gathered a brain trust of staffers and extended fam, asking them to submit their top 20 Jay-Z songs, ranked to the best of their abilities. Rather, we have a different question we’ve argued all day about: What’s the best Jay-Z song? And what better day to settle that debate than today, one day before the 25th anniversary of Jay’s debut LP, Reasonable Doubt-the legacy of which we’ve explored throughout the network today, in both print and on No Skips With Jinx and Shea. We are not here right now to relitigate that battle, or any type of MC hierarchy.

1-Jay and Nas would go to war over the answer to the question he posed. Years after that song-“Where I’m From,” the crown jewel of Jay’s second album, In My Lifetime, Vol.

In the opening verse to one of Jay-Z’s best songs-we’ll get to that in a bit-Hov hits pause on the stories of boosters hawking clothes and dealers dodging police vans and speaks like a true-blooded rap fan: “I’m from where n-s pull your card, and argue all day about / Who’s the best MCs, Biggie, Jay-Z, or Nas?” That taps into the reality for anyone who lives and breathes this music-that no matter how dirty the hustler, no matter how big the star, no matter how average the fan, people love debating hip-hop supremacy.

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