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10. Pusha T
No one has ever made crack speak so crisp. You listen to him say “Arm & Hammer and a Mason jar, that’s my dinner date” and you want to diagram a sentence.
9. Tika Sumpter
Perhaps the world’s most underrated enunciator. She’s the Paul Millsap of enunciation.
8. Phylicia Rashad
I heard her speak on a panel at the August Wilson Center for African American culture once, and every word she spoke sounded like money. Like, she’d say “May I have a pretzel, please?” and I’d hear “there’s 50 years of training and 30 million dollars behind this vowel sound.”
7. Mike Colter
Enunciates on screen like someone who thinks they’re doing a voiceover and hasn’t yet realized we can see him too.
6. Michelle Obama
When they go low, we pronounce every damn letter in “high.”
5. Viola Davis
Has perfected the enunciation of shame. She can enunciate a word and make you reevaluate your life and question your entire reason for living. When she enunciates, niggas find God.
4. Micheal Eric Dyson
Is easily the Guinness world record holder in fully articulated syllables per second.
3. Joe Morton
Regularly makes syllables his bitch. Like, syllables see Joe Morton coming and they avert their eyes and cross the street. He treats syllables like they were talking shit about him in a GroupMe chat and he just found out about it.
2. Courtney B. Vance
I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the Vance/Bassett household, just to hear Courtney say “we ran out of toilet paper” or “pass me my gout ointment and a straw” and make it sound profound as fuck.
1. Angela Bassett
This is why she still looks so good. All of that stretching and straining from enunciating is keeping her in great shape.
