…and actually, I have less of a bitch about this than you might think.

Of course, Rolling Stone magazine has never exactly been the go-to place for anything related to hip-hop culture, so I automatically took their list of hip-hop titans with a grain of salt-even before I dug into it. However, upon reading it, I realized that their list was less about a “best rapper of all-time” discussion (which, let’s face it, would place them WAY out of their element) and more about commercial considerations, which makes more sense for them.

Somewhat surprisingly, Eminem leads the list. Although he’s no longer considered hip-hop’s alpha male, he headed Rolling Stone’s list, which looked at things like album sales (Recovery is the best-selling album of the past couple of years), social media stats and Grammy Awards. Also worth noting, this list only includes stats since the beginning of 2009. The race was close, though. Lil Wayne only finished 30 points behind Eminem on the list, mainly thanks to a spate of appearances on Billboard’s R&B and rap charts (see what happens when you appear on everyone’s damn record?) He also released three albums during the period.

While it pains me to see artists like Gucci Mane and Waka Flocka Flame on any list that has nothing to do with “worst rappers of all time”, I at least breathe easy that they’re not in the Top 5. It’s also a little disappointing to see artists who are dope but criminally underacknowledged like Big Boi and B.o.B towards the bottom of the list, but hey-I suppose there’s some good that comes from keeping the guest appearances to a minimum, right? I also tip my hat to the RS folks for including Nicki Minaj on a list of “Kings of Hip-Hop”. It’s kind of sad to see some of the emcees that are listed in 2011, but think about it: twenty years ago, it’s very likely that a list like this would’ve been headed by MC Hammer, with Vanilla Ice #2 and…I don’t know, Marky Mark in the Top Five?

Oh…and where’s Nas? Hasn’t he released two albums during this period? Certainly he’d have a better ranking than Snoop Dogg. Right?

Check out Rolling Stone’s Top 20 ranking after the jump:

Rank Artist Points
1 Eminem 1169
2 Lil Wayne 1134
3 Drake 1020
4 Kanye West 784
5 Jay-Z 666
6 Nicki Minaj 630
7 Rick Ross 549
8 Ludacris 548
9 Gucci Mane 545
10 T.I. 533
11 Snoop Dogg 370
12 Diddy 325
13 Pitbull 318
14 Fabolous 307
15 Wiz Khalifa 295
16 B.o.B. 293
17 Waka Flocka Flame 292
18 Lupe Fiasco 191
19 Kid Cudi 188
20 Big Boi 82