That's right, it has been officially one year since the first post for Straight Outta Hip Hop has gone up. Thank you everybody that has been tuning in since the beginning. We've grown a lot since the beginning, especially with the extension of the radio station and there is only more coming. We are also coming up on the 100th blog post and there will be something special for that, so stay tuned.

With that said, let's get into a little discussion that's lightweight and will hopefully leave you wanting to go back and listen to some songs that will be mentioned here. So, what I want to know is, what is the greatest and/or your favorite hip hop story song of all time? Obviously storytelling is a huge part of hip hop, especially since The Great Adventures of Slick Rick. Most would probably argue that Slick Rick is the greatest story teller of all-time, and given that album, it's kind of difficult to argue with that. My favorite story from that album is "The Moment I Feared" (although I love "Mona Lisa" as well). However, does the best story come from that album?

Other great stories have come from artists like Biggie ("I Got A Story To Tell"), Mos Def (Ms. Fat Booty), Nas (handful from "It Was Written"), Outkast ("Da Art Of Storytellin'"), Lupe Fiasco ("Hip Hop Saved My Life"), Common (I Used To Love H.E.R.), and many others. By the way, one story that is probably slept on that I really like comes from T.I.'s first album (which I didn't think was really that good but this one song was) is "What Happened?"

However, probably the one that I would have to say is my favorite and I would assume took the most time to construct comes from Ice Cube. His "A Gangsta's Fairytale" (Part 1 and 2) is amazing. They are written in classic Cube fashion; with extreme circumstances, purposely offensive at times, and all the way hood. They're full of comedy and wit and include a number of fairytale characters that become intertwined in one ghetto neighborhood. I think just imagining him creating the song adds to it because it seems like it took extremely long to make sure everything fell in place so that's my vote.

Let me know what your favorite story is and who the greatest storyteller is. It is always fascinating when people can paint such a vivid pictures while still being able to rhyme words and be clever. Below is "A Gangsta's Fairytale," as well. As always, leave your comments here and/or email at straightouttahiphop@gmail.com.