@monsterstomp: Oh yeah, with your Biggie and Pac question, I'd say it has to do with the three factors of them being both dead, their respective sales power during their time, and their respective styles. Being dead always increases an artists appeal in a certain way along with adding nostalgia to their respective runs, and Pac/Big dying so close to each other(Nine months apart) and during such a successful period in rap really imprinted them in people's minds.
In regards to their respective styles, both Pac and Big were both somewhat anomalies in terms of how they captured their copious amounts. With Pac, he was unique in terms of how he was a conscious rapper who still had massive commercial appeal. Most of the conscious rappers you see today like the Lupe Fiasco's, Common's, etc. don't really sell much at all, but Pac was just as conscious as those guys but he has sales that rival those of people like an Eminem, and he was able to garner a fanbase that had a large amount of diversity. With Biggie, he was one of the first guys to make gangsta have lots of commercial mixing with it. Look at his final album, Life After Death, and he mixed gangster themes like murders, selling drugs, etc. but mixed it up with clubbish beats(Hypnotize, etc.) and occasional mixes of commercial appeal that give him the perfect combination of street rap and being able to sell records. Years later, you'd see guys like 50 Cent copy that formula to get songs that had lots of street appeal along with moving bonkers amounts of units. Even today, rappers still copy that Biggie formula to appeal to both masses.
Overall, they get as much respect as they do because they help set in so many trends, and manage to be the two biggest respective rappers in an era that was probably the most successful for rap(The 90's.)
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