I guess Mims was the only NY based rapper. As Kelefa rightfully points out, Didddy doesn’t count. Link
A point was proven this year too, though not by one of the headliners. Sometime around 6:30 the Washington Heights-raised rapper Mims — better known as the “This Is Why I’m Hot” guy — hit the stage to tell the crowd why he is hot. (It’s related somehow to his flyness.) Then came the reggae remix, with Junior Reid and Cham. Then he was gone, ceding the stage to a bunch of crooners and out-of-towners. At New York’s biggest hip-hop show, the one-hit-wonder Mims was the only local rapper on the bill.
Some would count Diddy (formerly Puff Daddy), whose typically entertaining set was one of the concert’s main events. But he’s primarily a dealmaker, not a rapper. And although Swizz Beatz now raps, he’s best known as a producer — the “best producer,” as he emphatically claimed on Sunday night.
That boast was a cue: Kanye West strolled onstage, and for a while the two engaged in friendly competition, trading song snippets to determine who was the better producer. The exchange said something about the current hip-hop climate: The genre is in a cheerful mood, and it seems clear that hot beats sell better than tough rhymes.
