Viktor Vaughn – Vaudeville Villain (2003)

Leak Bros’ Water World has Cage at his drug-riddled, dark, demented best alongside Tame One, and without any of the obvious choices that plague Moves For The Blind.Ģ5. “Agent Orange,” right, right? RIGHT, RIGHT? Thanks to a few key songs, Movies For The Blind may forever go down as Cage’s magnum opus, but even the Necro-fueled “Agent Orange” couldn’t hold up what was ultimately a hit-and-miss album. Live touched on love, loss, the unpredictability of life, politics, and, of course, being a dope emcee, without dipping into cliche or ever seeming to step out of place–the intricate storytelling of “One for the Griot,” the rappity-rapping of “The Lyricist,” the activism of “Satisfied?” and the nostalgia of “Nights Like This” all feel like interconnected pieces showing what an emcee unconcerned with mainstream conceits could be at the highest level. On his second full length LP, teacher by day and rapper by night J-Live put together a set of clever tracks, well-produced tracks that set off a flare for all would be conscious emcees: this is how you talk about grown up issues. On 8 Million Stories, however, the duo’s vision coalesced into a sprawling, ecstatic musical statement, expanding on the ideas and sounds of their debut and highlighting each artist at his best: Blueprint weaving clever everyman rhymes and RJD2 focusing his dusty funk formula to make perfect soundscapes for rapping. Soul Position – 8 Million Stories (2003)īlueprint’s sharp, personal rhymes married with RJD2’s lush sampled soul was a winning combination when it debuted on the latter’s Deadringer LP (“Final Frontier”) and when it produced the solid Unlimited EP. Related: The Best Albums of 2014 (So Far)ģ0. Hit next or click the picture to read on… Here are the 30 best underground hip-hop albums. It was no better or worse, but for many fans who craved more than what the radio had to offer, underground hip-hop was an extremely important scene. Seven or eight years ago, if you said you were into underground hip-hop, people knew exactly what you meant. There are still some scenes, still independent hip-hop labels doing their thing, and still plenty of innovative unsigned artists keeping that tradition alive, but “underground” doesn’t mean much anymore. Maybe it was when “underground” was replaced with internet buzz acts on the fast track to major label deals. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what happened, but some time right around when indie rock became a genre instead of an indication of label affiliation, underground hip-hop ceased to exist in the way that we had always known it. Underground hip-hop doesn’t exist anymore, at least not like it used to.

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