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Famous Rappers and Their Literary Counterparts


If William Faulkner were a rapper, who would he be? (Or, if you prefer, if Lil Wayne were a writer, who would he be?)

Flavorwire matches famous rappers with their 20th-century literary doppelgangers with surprisingly apt comparisons:

Ja Rule = Jay McInerney

In the 1980s, McInerney was a fresh-faced up-and-comer whose novel Bright Lights, Big City had just taken the New York literary world by storm. Similarly, Ja Rule exerted an iron-fisted rule over the radio waves in the late 1990s and early 2000s. McInerney and Ja Rule both celebrated cocaine culture and had an arsenal of flashy new-fangled tricks up their sleeve to impress their audience. And now, when you mention either of their names, everyone groans.

Read on to find out why Notorious B.I.G = Ernest Hemingway, Tupac Shakur = F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Wu-Tang Clan = The Beat Poets, and more.


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