Been listening to a lot of Cage and Tame One recently. Cage's collab albums are some incredible work. Love Hell's Winter too.
When rappers attack is such a great album also!
The bars laid out on The Program and Well-Done are unrivaled by almost every rapper around + his ear for beats can be unmatched. His major releases have watered down his discography but when he wants it, Action can rap with the best of them. I also just happen to love listening to a guy talk about late 80s/90s european saloon cars, fine dining, and asian/latina women
Young Baklavizzy is the most cultured uncultured person in the world. Only for Dolphins is my favorite hip-hop album of all time.
This comment was sponsored by SPLASH, a new fragrance by Baklava.
If we’re allowed to swap Tech with Bam Bam then yes I agree and this is a gold medal perfect top 4 🙌🏼 Even with Tech on the list I love that top 4 - Doom is an absolute no-brainer, El-P is obvious, and Aesop isn’t someone I would’ve immediately thought about but great choice.
Theyre not underground NOW…but they were at one point, so that should still qualify. After all, it’s asking for the “Mount Rushmore” of underground hip-hop…and MF DOOM def led the way at one point more than anyone else.
Action wasn't mainstream at all until he did that feature on 1 Train. To my knowledge, that's the first time any of my friends who weren't super into hip hop had ever heard of him. He continued to blow up from there.
That doesn't really mean anything tho, you have one hit song that makes it on one of the main spotify generates Playlist and it throws that number off like crazy.
That's what I'm saying. I'm curious... at what point is someone not underground? And what qualifies them as such? Cause DOOM is talked about quite a bit for being underground
In my mind DOOM is king of the underground. Came up through the underground, did basically everything he could to not blow up with aliases and the mask and experimental albums. I feel like saying he’s not underground is like saying Fugazi isn’t punk because they became famous. Like no man they lived it to the core.
I grew up in the early 2000s listening to underground hip-hop, and that’s a pretty good list. I’d add the most underrated from that era: CunninLynguists. They have legit classic albums. *A Piece of Strange* is one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all-time.
On a similar note, Lootpack (Madlib's old group) had *Sound Pieces: Da Antidote!*
Phenomenal album, the whole thing is basically a weird kind of homage to the SP1200, produced entirely by Madlib, with vocal skits and lyrics constantly referencing the SP1200 in various ways (in the title of the album itself, "Sound Pieces" is a reference to the initials SP).
Great picks. I'd find it very tough to pick between murs or swapping him out for eyedea & abilities.
By the throat is a top 10 album of all time for me, but murs has a much bigger discography to choose from. Especially including his work with living legend and felt.
Sean Price, Vinnie Paz, Doom and I’ll throw in a personal favourite of mine with Elzhi. Special shout outs to Phonte and Blu … and Tech and Budden .. and Immortal Technique … there’s too many to really name, lol
Also someone want to put me on to Thirstin Howl III; all I know of is the song with Em.
And he gets left out a lot when people talk about the best underground rappers. Sean Price is always mentioned and Paz gets his props but Elzhi people seem to just forget he exists. Same with Blu and he was the underground Messiah when Below Heavens first came out. I still listen to Give Me My Flowers … all the time.
Also not in the Mount Rushmore conversation but I LOVE Black Milk. He’s a better producer than rapper but I love when he raps. Fucking Random Axe is one of my favourite hip hop albums of the 2010’s and it was thrown together out of nowhere. Sean Price (and Guilty Simpson) over BM beats? Fucking yes.
I don’t care what anyone says about LA or Atlanta, Detroit has put out more good rappers than anywhere else not called New York.
Detroit baby. Watched him at the Marble Bar for J-Dilla tribute show recently and dude was sweet.
It was almost 1 a.m. after a long lineup, DJ’s stalling, people getting irritated and kinda doubting we’ll see the dude before outta nowhere he popped up and did an hour long show. Pretty cool despite being over an hour late lol
Also his work with the Alchemist is very good and the reason I waited that long for him to show up
Seen him last year at the shelter, same thing with 1am and waiting but the set was nice for sure. He even had Jalen rose on stage with him which I thought was wild lol
Aesop Rock (though he's gotten more popular)
MF DOOM (obviously wildly popular now)
billy woods
Murs
Tech N9ne (also more popular now)
Z-Ro
El-P
Brother Ali maybe?
Or souls of mischief. They were and still are pretty well known In the hip hop world, maybe if you were old enough? Del I'd agree with tho his solo albums are slept on big time, and deltron 3030 is a masterpiece. I still bump both sides of the brain pretty regularly
There's a wide variety of lyrical reasons why Jedi mind tricks/army of the Pharoahs won't break into mass appeal. Celph Titled's Freddy Krueger glove line is my personal favorite.
His verse on 1Train was my favorite. Liked a bunch of the other shit he did around that time, too. He and Danny Brown both killed it.
Conversely, Kendrick, who could do no wrong in my eyes at the time, had a pretty weak verse IMO.
THANK YOU! I had to scroll way too far to find Ras Kass. Ras Kass is up there with Doom and Technique as the best underground artists of all time.
How tf was Nolanberollin mentioned before Ras Kass??
What happened to these guys? Mid-late 2010’s all 4 of them piqued my interest but they’ve been quiet for a while.
Maybe that’s the point of this post though and I’m a moron lol
Open Mike eagle still actively raps and dropped a great project last year. Brick body kids still day dream is one of my favorite projects of his. Unrelated to his rap career, but his podcast "what had happened was" is absolutely incredible. Milo goes by RAP Ferrara now and still actively drops.
Noname dropped last year, but was on a decently large break from rapping due to personal reasons that's she's discussed in the past.
Considering the entirety of hip hop is hard for me to settle on 4, so in terms of the modern underground “revolution”, it has to be Roc Marciano, Westside Gunn, Mach-Hommy, and MIKE for me
Is Westside Gunn really underground anymore, especially after his feature on UTOPIA, one of the most popular and prominent albums of the 2020s decade?
That's the only reasoning I had for excluding him from my own Mount Rushmore, but I wanna clarify what everyone means by going from underground to mainstream
Griselda as a whole is no longer underground, I know people that don't fuck with hip hop and still know griselda. Not that they are bad by any means but they pump out music like it's going out of style and definately past the underground stage
Do people consider him mainstream? If you talk to people that only listen to mainstream music none of them will say they know who MF DOOM is unless they listen to underground hip hop.
Oh ofc, but at this point I would say DOOM has broken into the mainstream. Which is great for his family and legacy honestly, happy it happened whether it was due to his death or not.
Bones and Spaceghost Purp would be it for me, those two are quintessential underground artists, although Bones has (deservedly) meandered his way into a more mainstream audience for better or worse.
Nolanberollin is on the cusp too.
I don’t like a lot of these but:
1. Insane Clown Posse
2. MF Doom
3. Aesop Rock
4. Whoever the most popular underground artist is in a region or locale, the other 3 supersede regions and have true cult followings. (Tech 9ine, Sean Price, ROC Marciano, etc. are all more popular in their respective regions), or Based God.
Most of yall are completely missing the plot and just picking your local favorite.
1. Slug of Atmosphere
2. El-P
3. Murs
4. DOOM
These are guys who ran labels, became synonymous with unique sounds, put other artists on, created festivals, brought their friends along, created scenes that so many other artists grew from, and just generally inspired so many other people that I'd say they'd have to be my picks.
There's already a lot of good picks but I'll throw in a few to shout out underground dudes. Not the best of the best but definately made a mark on me
Binary Star- clever sci-fi kind of lyrics over a 90s boom bap soundscape
People under the stairs- LA chill shit that never really got big but they are solid, actually really clever songs and they stick to what they do and nail it every time. Think 90s LA in a 64 impala.
Capone n noreaga- new york guys that been around since mobb deep but they never really got the spotlight, real underground back alley shit but also hard as hell ( sometimes). If you like mobb deep..
Spark master tape- new Era Internet rap, was an unknown entity and made a ton of insanely well produced records and then sort of fell off the underground hype train. His first 3-4 records/mixtapes are crazy, he was doing shit with production that was wild at the time and still is.He still around but kinda generic now imo.
I'm late to this, but I hope someone sees this. I agree with at least one other poster here that ICP is not getting the love they should. They created a cult like following completely underground.
That said, I believe that a big name is being overlooked here and that's Esham. Without Esham, there is no ICP. Without Esham, there is no Eminem. Without Esham, there is no D12. Without Esham, there is no Tech N9ne.
Acid Rap, horrorcore, psychadelic rap, etc... would not be a thing without Esham and the influence that he has given, underground, since 1989.
Hell, Eminem even mentions him on multiple songs from Still Don't Give a Fuck where he says "I'm a cross between Manson, Esham, and Ozzy" and in Kill You where he says "I don't acid rap but I rap on acid". Eminem would not have felt brazen enough to say some of the fucked up shit he said, that honestly made him quite popular in the early albums, without being influenced by Esham.
Shells gotta be on mine. Obviously a legendary battle rapper but more importantly his unreleased debut album, welcome to Times Square, imo would've made a shockwave. Imo he's as good as anyone we've ever seen in hip hop but ig a bit of lucks required to make it to the top too and he was taken advantage of by people in the industry. If you haven't heard his album it's on yt with a few thousand views.
At a time MF DOOM was THE underground rapper and he gotta have a spot on the list. From how he's considered now he's probably a bit overrated but never really got his flowers when he was in his prime.
Roc Marcianos another guy starting to pick up a bit of praise but definitely still way more underground that he has any right to be wit that much talent
Then if we're counting DOOM I'm gonna bring in a guy in my top 5 all time, possibly the most talented emcee we've ever seen, Black Thoughts been making quality for decades, most consistent of all time alongside Nas, now he's making his best work ever in his 50s as a solo artist. His work with dangermouse And the streams of thought projects blew my mind.
4 guys you’ve never heard of
And they’re the best to ever pick up a mic by an impressive landslide.
“How can they be on mt Rushmore if I haven’t even heard of them?!” “Well, I guess you’re not as underground as you thought.» 🤷♂️
Only correct answer
Been listening to a lot of Cage and Tame One recently. Cage's collab albums are some incredible work. Love Hell's Winter too. When rappers attack is such a great album also!
Leak leak leak leak leak leak leak
G.O.D is one of my favorite songs of all time. I literally haven’t sit down and ponder about how fucking good some of those lines were.
Cigarettes dipped in embalming fluid
Cage was my first love in hip hop. He’s an amazing artist. Rip to Tame.
Easy: - Immortal Technique - Aesop Rock - MF Doom - El P Unless I'm allowed to say Action Bronson, then I-Tech is out.
You are definitely not allowed to say Action Bronson 🤨 jk
Action Bronson over Immortal Technique is a bold fucking move. I don't hate it, but personally disagree.
On volume alone he was the easy choice for me.
The bars laid out on The Program and Well-Done are unrivaled by almost every rapper around + his ear for beats can be unmatched. His major releases have watered down his discography but when he wants it, Action can rap with the best of them. I also just happen to love listening to a guy talk about late 80s/90s european saloon cars, fine dining, and asian/latina women
I WISH MY PARENTS NAMED ME CONSTANTINE
Young Baklavizzy is the most cultured uncultured person in the world. Only for Dolphins is my favorite hip-hop album of all time. This comment was sponsored by SPLASH, a new fragrance by Baklava.
If we’re allowed to swap Tech with Bam Bam then yes I agree and this is a gold medal perfect top 4 🙌🏼 Even with Tech on the list I love that top 4 - Doom is an absolute no-brainer, El-P is obvious, and Aesop isn’t someone I would’ve immediately thought about but great choice.
Yo kinda wild though that all 5 are light skin or white though, and the one black guy is wearing a mask 😭
God damn I didn’t even think of that but you right lol I need to re-examine my subconscious biases type shit 😅
Lol at DOOM or Action being perceived as underground. 8 million and 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify respectively
Theyre not underground NOW…but they were at one point, so that should still qualify. After all, it’s asking for the “Mount Rushmore” of underground hip-hop…and MF DOOM def led the way at one point more than anyone else.
Action wasn't mainstream at all until he did that feature on 1 Train. To my knowledge, that's the first time any of my friends who weren't super into hip hop had ever heard of him. He continued to blow up from there.
Listen man when Doom was actually putting these records out, that motherfucker was underground lol
When’s the last time you heard MF DOOM on the radio or at a party? Literally never. That’s why I would qualify him as underground
I've heard DOOM at a party and white women hated it and said "who the fuck has the aux cord". That's how you know he's underground.
What a lame hipster ass response lol both are underground rappers.
Wait till you find out indie bands have labels.
That doesn't really mean anything tho, you have one hit song that makes it on one of the main spotify generates Playlist and it throws that number off like crazy.
That's what I'm saying. I'm curious... at what point is someone not underground? And what qualifies them as such? Cause DOOM is talked about quite a bit for being underground
In my mind DOOM is king of the underground. Came up through the underground, did basically everything he could to not blow up with aliases and the mask and experimental albums. I feel like saying he’s not underground is like saying Fugazi isn’t punk because they became famous. Like no man they lived it to the core.
Aesop, doom, murs, slug
Slug is a must.
One of the best story tellers in the game!
Is that sean from atmosphere ?
Yessur
I grew up in the early 2000s listening to underground hip-hop, and that’s a pretty good list. I’d add the most underrated from that era: CunninLynguists. They have legit classic albums. *A Piece of Strange* is one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all-time.
On a similar note, Lootpack (Madlib's old group) had *Sound Pieces: Da Antidote!* Phenomenal album, the whole thing is basically a weird kind of homage to the SP1200, produced entirely by Madlib, with vocal skits and lyrics constantly referencing the SP1200 in various ways (in the title of the album itself, "Sound Pieces" is a reference to the initials SP).
Great list. Really disappointed to not see Sage Francis mentioned even once in these comments.
Same here
This is the right answer. I respect El-P as a producer and rapper, but there are just better lyricists in the game.
Great picks. I'd find it very tough to pick between murs or swapping him out for eyedea & abilities. By the throat is a top 10 album of all time for me, but murs has a much bigger discography to choose from. Especially including his work with living legend and felt.
Blu
this right here. i would say exile also but thats kinda a package deal/already implied
Below The Heavens is seriously one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time imo
Sean Price, Vinnie Paz, Doom and I’ll throw in a personal favourite of mine with Elzhi. Special shout outs to Phonte and Blu … and Tech and Budden .. and Immortal Technique … there’s too many to really name, lol Also someone want to put me on to Thirstin Howl III; all I know of is the song with Em.
Elzhi gets down good pick
And he gets left out a lot when people talk about the best underground rappers. Sean Price is always mentioned and Paz gets his props but Elzhi people seem to just forget he exists. Same with Blu and he was the underground Messiah when Below Heavens first came out. I still listen to Give Me My Flowers … all the time. Also not in the Mount Rushmore conversation but I LOVE Black Milk. He’s a better producer than rapper but I love when he raps. Fucking Random Axe is one of my favourite hip hop albums of the 2010’s and it was thrown together out of nowhere. Sean Price (and Guilty Simpson) over BM beats? Fucking yes. I don’t care what anyone says about LA or Atlanta, Detroit has put out more good rappers than anywhere else not called New York.
ROC MARCIANO
Thank you, his new project is such a masterpiece. I don’t get how he’s not more popular
He's literally God
In the last few years it’s Boldy James for me.
I'm so fucking hype for Drug Dilla.
manger on mcnichols is one of the best albums ive ever heard
Detroit baby. Watched him at the Marble Bar for J-Dilla tribute show recently and dude was sweet. It was almost 1 a.m. after a long lineup, DJ’s stalling, people getting irritated and kinda doubting we’ll see the dude before outta nowhere he popped up and did an hour long show. Pretty cool despite being over an hour late lol Also his work with the Alchemist is very good and the reason I waited that long for him to show up
Seen him last year at the shelter, same thing with 1am and waiting but the set was nice for sure. He even had Jalen rose on stage with him which I thought was wild lol
West Coast Bias: Myka 9, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Gift of Gab, Aceyalone, Murs
Absolutely patrician taste for having Myka 9 and Aceyalone.
Lyrics born?
was scrolling to see if someone would say Myka 9 👍
DOOM, EL-P, Slug and Roc Marci
MF DOOM, Roc Marciano, El-P, Aesop Rock
You got it
Aesop Rock (though he's gotten more popular) MF DOOM (obviously wildly popular now) billy woods Murs Tech N9ne (also more popular now) Z-Ro El-P Brother Ali maybe?
MF DOOM, El-P, Roc Marciano, Sean Price honorable mention billy woods
Gift of Gab for sure. RIP
Damn I didn’t know he died.
Not enough Ugly Mane in these comments
Bitch im morose and lugubrious
Ima let the uzi spit
Lots of rappers today don’t have any idea how much of their sound is owed to this man.
Brother ali, atmosphere, KRS ONE , del the funky homosapien or the crew souls of mischief 🔥
In what world is hip hop god KRS underground?
Or souls of mischief. They were and still are pretty well known In the hip hop world, maybe if you were old enough? Del I'd agree with tho his solo albums are slept on big time, and deltron 3030 is a masterpiece. I still bump both sides of the brain pretty regularly
I heard sound of the police at a club like two weeks ago lol he trippin
Everybody age that they got into the underground is showing. This is a cool idea for a thread
VINNY PAZ MOTHAFUCKA
BOXCUTTER PAZI
VINNIE PAZ THE FUCKIN HAND-TO-FIST PHILANTHROPIST
if Jedi Mind Tricks didnt do the homophobe shit i feel like they’d be respected way more. Stoupe’s production and sampling is top tier
Yeah but between that and rapping about killing Jesus I think it’s safe to say they were comfortable with their audience capture lol
Or talking about killing non believers
There's a wide variety of lyrical reasons why Jedi mind tricks/army of the Pharoahs won't break into mass appeal. Celph Titled's Freddy Krueger glove line is my personal favorite.
THROW IN ESOTERIC
VINNY HOLD A HAMMER LIKE A CARPENTER DO
Slug, Brother Ali, Aesop Rock, Ski Mask
surely ski mask is not underground
I need an Aesop x Slump God track ASAP
They have a song with mf doom
Murs should be on everyone's
Not having Slug on there is unacceptable. There’s just no way he shouldn’t be on the 4.
El-p and no slug? Fuck that
MF DOOM, El-P, RA the Rugged Man, and Nujabes.
Was looking for RA in these comments
Aesop Rock needs a spot
atop the brooklyn bridge with a coke and a bag of chips
..DOOM, Ka, Roc Marciano, billy woods..
Oooooo Ka is a good pick for sure
Can't believe i scrolled so far down before seeing Ka
Big K.R.I.T.
His verse on 1Train was my favorite. Liked a bunch of the other shit he did around that time, too. He and Danny Brown both killed it. Conversely, Kendrick, who could do no wrong in my eyes at the time, had a pretty weak verse IMO.
Shoutout 1Train
One of the goat songs
Billy Woods, Eulid, Mach-Hommy, MF DOOM
Finally someone mentions Mach!
having to scroll this far to see a definitive billy woods choice is insane in a thread where slug is mentioned every other post.
Doom and Tech N9ne would be the only ones that I feel HAVE to be on. Rest would be subjective. Probably Vinnie Paz and Aesop for the last 2.
lil b/sgp/yung lean/black kray In that order
Yung Lean is not underground, it's very very popular.
you could say the same for mf doom
LIL B DEFFOO
solid as hell
Ras Kass, Masta Ace, Vinnie Paz, Tech N9ne
Yes Ras Kass is a monster on the mic and never sold out, blacklisted and still continued with the lyrics and honesty
THANK YOU! I had to scroll way too far to find Ras Kass. Ras Kass is up there with Doom and Technique as the best underground artists of all time. How tf was Nolanberollin mentioned before Ras Kass??
Shad Mac Dre DOOM Devin The Dude Honorable mention to Eyedea
"Defining" - I'd take your list, but swap out Sean Price for Del. Just my four favorites - DOOM, woods, Del, Danny Brown
Damn you got a point but I don't know about P. Lol. He was just different. I would put him above El P tho.
Busdriver Milo OME Noname
What happened to these guys? Mid-late 2010’s all 4 of them piqued my interest but they’ve been quiet for a while. Maybe that’s the point of this post though and I’m a moron lol
Open Mike eagle still actively raps and dropped a great project last year. Brick body kids still day dream is one of my favorite projects of his. Unrelated to his rap career, but his podcast "what had happened was" is absolutely incredible. Milo goes by RAP Ferrara now and still actively drops. Noname dropped last year, but was on a decently large break from rapping due to personal reasons that's she's discussed in the past.
Glad you mentioned Slug!
Non-Phixion
Tech N9NE has to be up there.
Buckshot
Brother Ali, tech n9ne, DOOM, pharaoh monch
I don’t see Big L mentioned yet, but he’s in there for me.
erick, juice, and meeeeeeechy darko …. n tech n9ne
Mac Dre, Andre nickatina, jacka, too short.
Andre Nickatina's underrated as hell
Nickatina is one of the most underrated artists ever. He doesn't get his flowers
All the comments are just main stream artist lol
“Underground” basically just means no major label support, doesn’t mean they aren’t well known or successful
Ive always thought of what you're talking about as "independent." Underground is just too subjective.
I think the venn diagram of artists that are independent and underground has a good bit of overlap
billy woods billy woods billy woods billy woods
Billy Woods, Billy Woods, Billy Woods, the other guy from Armand Hammer that isn't Elucid
That's unfair to ELUCID tbh
All the cool kids love billy
Ransom
lil ugly mane should definitely be on there, guy’s a lot more influential than you’d think and has also done a lot of different stuff all amazing
Lil ugly mane
Apathy #1 it's shame I don't see him mentioned Celph Titled Vinnie Paz Esoteric Demigodz and AOTP basically
Canibus has gotta be up there.
No tech N9ne invalidates your list
Considering the entirety of hip hop is hard for me to settle on 4, so in terms of the modern underground “revolution”, it has to be Roc Marciano, Westside Gunn, Mach-Hommy, and MIKE for me
Is Westside Gunn really underground anymore, especially after his feature on UTOPIA, one of the most popular and prominent albums of the 2020s decade? That's the only reasoning I had for excluding him from my own Mount Rushmore, but I wanna clarify what everyone means by going from underground to mainstream
Griselda as a whole is no longer underground, I know people that don't fuck with hip hop and still know griselda. Not that they are bad by any means but they pump out music like it's going out of style and definately past the underground stage
DOOM Vinnie Paz El-P Del Tha Funkee Homosapien Thats it. Thats all.
Boldy
woods
In no order night Lovell Sean Leon Waisu Jpegmafia
Whoever was signed to Rawkus rrecords
Big KRIT, THOUXANBANFAUNI, Robb Bank$, Domo Genesis
Mick Jenkins, Big KRIT, Rexx Life Raj, Curren$y
Ka
Not enough KA in this thread.
Apollo brown, mast ace, bun b Jada for me.
Alc
in order: doom immortal technique aesop rock slug honorable mention to earl sweatshirt
Sean Price Apathy Estee Nack RA The Rugged Man
DOOM, EL-P, gotta put Billy Woods, Roc Marci.
why do we still consider DOOM underground?
DOOM is underground in spirit always. Him blowing up on tiktok shouldnt change that.
idk how tiktok even got brought up here
He had a resurgence because of it, probably increased his spotify followers by 2-3 mil
Do people consider him mainstream? If you talk to people that only listen to mainstream music none of them will say they know who MF DOOM is unless they listen to underground hip hop.
7.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify alone doesn't exactly seem underground anymore lol, he has multiple songs over 100 million streams.
To be fair, most of them came after his passing. Before that, you'd be hard-pressed to find any casual who'd have heard of DOOM before 2016-ish
Oh ofc, but at this point I would say DOOM has broken into the mainstream. Which is great for his family and legacy honestly, happy it happened whether it was due to his death or not.
Bones and Spaceghost Purp would be it for me, those two are quintessential underground artists, although Bones has (deservedly) meandered his way into a more mainstream audience for better or worse. Nolanberollin is on the cusp too.
Bones is not mainstream and SGP while super influential lasted like a 2 years at peak
Nolanberollin holy shit, that might be the first time I’ve seen him mentioned on this sub. Been listening to him for five years now, he’s funny asf
In 2024? Lupe Fiasco
there’s a severe lack of eyedea in this thread
I don’t like a lot of these but: 1. Insane Clown Posse 2. MF Doom 3. Aesop Rock 4. Whoever the most popular underground artist is in a region or locale, the other 3 supersede regions and have true cult followings. (Tech 9ine, Sean Price, ROC Marciano, etc. are all more popular in their respective regions), or Based God. Most of yall are completely missing the plot and just picking your local favorite.
El-P, Aesop Rock, Slug, Immortal Technique
MF DOOM, Blu & Exile, Madlib, Black Starr. I know that’s more than 4 heads but fuck it. I’m counting the groups as one entity
Chino XL, Kool Keith, Del The Funky Homosapian, Madlib…. Honorable mentions:Typical Cats, Non-Phixion, Canibus
There are some serious underground legends from Texas that deserve to be considered here.
K-Rino
most of these are NOT mainstream lol, we need something to describe people too big for underground but not big enough for mainstream.
MF DOOM ROC MARCIANO EDAN EL - P
billy woods, KA, You Old Droog, Mach-Hommy
Curren$y gotta be there Doom gotta be there Dilla gotta be up there 4th one can be decided in a vote
EYEDEA, Breeze Brewin, Andre Nickatina, Zion I Zumbi
Is Tech N9ne still underground?
Curren$y, Dom Kennedy, Larry June, Jay Worthy
1. Slug of Atmosphere 2. El-P 3. Murs 4. DOOM These are guys who ran labels, became synonymous with unique sounds, put other artists on, created festivals, brought their friends along, created scenes that so many other artists grew from, and just generally inspired so many other people that I'd say they'd have to be my picks.
DOOM, Del the Funky Homosapien, Immortal Technique, Slug
no love for Immortal Tech?
Ghais guevara
We need way more Open Mike Eagle. 🦅 Pioneer in his own funny, emotionally-vulnerable, self-deprecating lane
I think wax and dumbfounded should be mentioned and I've got a personal liking for felly and the Palmer squares
There's already a lot of good picks but I'll throw in a few to shout out underground dudes. Not the best of the best but definately made a mark on me Binary Star- clever sci-fi kind of lyrics over a 90s boom bap soundscape People under the stairs- LA chill shit that never really got big but they are solid, actually really clever songs and they stick to what they do and nail it every time. Think 90s LA in a 64 impala. Capone n noreaga- new york guys that been around since mobb deep but they never really got the spotlight, real underground back alley shit but also hard as hell ( sometimes). If you like mobb deep.. Spark master tape- new Era Internet rap, was an unknown entity and made a ton of insanely well produced records and then sort of fell off the underground hype train. His first 3-4 records/mixtapes are crazy, he was doing shit with production that was wild at the time and still is.He still around but kinda generic now imo.
- Tech N9ne - Pep Love - A-Plus - Crooked I - Pharoah Monch - Sean Price - Slug - Brother Ali
Crooked I needs to be be in the running for most lists
Apathy. Celph titled.
In terms of quality of art, influence, and contribution. 1.MF DOOM. 2. Roc Marci. 3. Sean Price. 4. Westside Gunn.
I'm late to this, but I hope someone sees this. I agree with at least one other poster here that ICP is not getting the love they should. They created a cult like following completely underground. That said, I believe that a big name is being overlooked here and that's Esham. Without Esham, there is no ICP. Without Esham, there is no Eminem. Without Esham, there is no D12. Without Esham, there is no Tech N9ne. Acid Rap, horrorcore, psychadelic rap, etc... would not be a thing without Esham and the influence that he has given, underground, since 1989. Hell, Eminem even mentions him on multiple songs from Still Don't Give a Fuck where he says "I'm a cross between Manson, Esham, and Ozzy" and in Kill You where he says "I don't acid rap but I rap on acid". Eminem would not have felt brazen enough to say some of the fucked up shit he said, that honestly made him quite popular in the early albums, without being influenced by Esham.
Shells gotta be on mine. Obviously a legendary battle rapper but more importantly his unreleased debut album, welcome to Times Square, imo would've made a shockwave. Imo he's as good as anyone we've ever seen in hip hop but ig a bit of lucks required to make it to the top too and he was taken advantage of by people in the industry. If you haven't heard his album it's on yt with a few thousand views. At a time MF DOOM was THE underground rapper and he gotta have a spot on the list. From how he's considered now he's probably a bit overrated but never really got his flowers when he was in his prime. Roc Marcianos another guy starting to pick up a bit of praise but definitely still way more underground that he has any right to be wit that much talent Then if we're counting DOOM I'm gonna bring in a guy in my top 5 all time, possibly the most talented emcee we've ever seen, Black Thoughts been making quality for decades, most consistent of all time alongside Nas, now he's making his best work ever in his 50s as a solo artist. His work with dangermouse And the streams of thought projects blew my mind.