Weezy said as much this past week during an appearance on Zane Lowe's Apple Music podcast show, where the topic of Billboard's 50 Greatest Rappers of All Time -- which they published on Feb. 8 -- came up ... and to LW's surprise, he clocked in at only #7, below several others.

The outlet has Biggie, Eminem, Tupac, Nas, Kendrick Lamar and Jay-Z ahead of him, respectively -- but Wayne begs to differ on all of them, especially among those still living. He says straight up, he's #1 ... and even dares survey-takers to ask the guys ranked higher than him how they feel about it. In his view, he thinks they'd agree ... Wayne is greater than them.

Per usual, this is all subjective ... and it's not really clear what sort of criteria Billboard is even following in deeming anyone better than the other. From the looks of it, it seems like they're pegging Jay as top dog because of overall success -- which he's certainly achieved.

But, if you check Twitter ... it appears many are agreeing with the notion that Wayne is, in fact, better than Jay-Z -- both in terms of rap skill and cultural impact, which really should be how these things are measured. Fact is, Weezy is still spittin' fire in 2023 (see the new DMX collab) ... whereas one could argue Jay isn't really rapping like he used to at his peak.

With that said, their numbers are comparable ... Wayne has 3 #1 hits (Billboard Hot 100) and Jay has 4 #1s of his own. However, Wayne has 25 of his songs in the top 10 historically, whereas Jay only has 22 in the same category. So, on a song-for-song basis ... they're close.

Even on an album count, Jay's 14 #1s to Wayne's 9 (Billboard 200) has 'em almost tied.

We suppose this question is really in the eye of the beholder, but can probably be answered honestly with one simple question -- in your heart of hearts, whose music are you actually bumpin' at the function? And who, truly, has the more memorable repertoire overall???