Real talk: looking back, most of that def jux/anticon/rhymesayers indie nerd rap was fukking garbage

[the cac mamba]

none shall pass by aesop rock was my song tho

this beat is ridiculous

but yeah that shyt in the OP

paul barman

 

[Kyle C. Barker]

Anticon was str8

The. fukking. Worst.

I don't get how they ever had fans lol

 

[10bandz]

All those cac underground nikkas were always trash.

SMH @ nikkas saying Doom was trash though. fukk all that, Dooms shyt still holds up

 

[Kyle C. Barker]

All those cac underground nikkas were always trash.

SMH @ nikkas saying Doom was trash though. fukk all that, Dooms shyt still holds up

Just gonna drop this here

 

[10bandz]

Lu bigged up DOOM and then followed it up buy nutriding Logic

i seen that Mos video a few times though. Dude might be one of the biggest Doom fans there is

 

[Ohene]

yeah all that shyt was boo boo.....all of it.

MC Paul Barman! ahahahaha.....Prince Paul worked with that fukkin clown extensively if Im not mistaken? I aint hear that name in years.

cold vein wasnt booboo stop it
fantastic damage was good too

rest was trash

 

[Unknown Poster]

I don't know if i'd class Copywrite with those guys. He was more of a traditional punchline rapper. Aesop really grew on me over time but yeah, I can easily see why some hate him. I agree with the TS on the rest of those cats being absolute trash though. Indie heads would really argue with you that Sage Francis is better than Jay-Z with a straight face. The struggle voicesThe struggle flows . As much as we complain about Future/Drate stans etc, those guys are nowhere near as insufferable as the element of underground rap fans who hyped these wack nerd rappers up at that time. Same annoying fans who used to whine about any freestyle not being of the top of the head and hated any gun bars in battles (while themselves hyping the most cliche "you look like" rhymes). I don't know if that sort is still around on other boards, or if they stopped listening to rap altogether, but i'm glad I don't encounter them here.

I used to post with the aforementioned on UGHH forums around 2005. Then quit to go to SOHH in 2006 because of the absolute pretentiousness and elitist "real hip-hop" attitude they had.

 

[Unknown Poster]

RJD2's deadringer

I love that album...

 

[Unknown Poster]

I was one of those self-righteous backpackers, and, honestly, listening back to some of those underground nikkaz from the early 00s is a struggle.

IT's a struggle cause not only is the music not good, it's dated and has no real long lasting value to it.

The only thing Anticon I still fukk with is Alias and Blockhead.

Also, that was such a different time in hip-hop I think alot of younger heads don't realize this. Especially 1998-2002. That's when there became a real clear cut division between underground and mainstream..also this was when the mp3 culture with napster and kazaa became a thing.

It really was the predecessor to "hipster rap" or it was hipster rap before hipster rap was a thing.

We was still rocking baggy clothes and backpacks...but honestly I felt this movement was the real suburban representation of hip-hop...more popular amongst that skater/stoner crowd that liked the aesthetic qualities of hip-hop (production/beats) but couldn't relate to the content.

 

[Adam3000]

In 1999, the greatest underground Hip Hop album of all time dropped (Soundbombing 2).




Side note to this thread....the absolute worst of these 2000's backpackers was Esoteric.

Just foul garbage

 

[Unknown Poster]

I'd say the vast majority stopped listening to rap. And it's expected. They were never hip hop fans like that. They sure loved to pretend though.

Look at what happened to Cage and Yak Ballz...they make emo punk now...

I can agree that most of those heads that were into that shyt now don't listen to hip-hop and grew out of it and are probably now hipsters that wear tight jeans or flooded dikkies with old man caps.

 

[Cheese McNair]

"I'm Michael Bibby with a little dash of Steve Nash"


I had no idea who Hot Karl was until you posted that. I'll never forget being forced to endure those struggle bars.

"Tear you apart, so you gotta play with heart. I'm an apparent all-star from the 3-pointer mark":ididit:

 

[Unknown Poster]

@1984 would you put the High & Mighty and the whole ECR crew in the same bag? Prob closer to early Rawkus and "traditionnal" HH than Def Jux and them though, they had some good records.

Nah...for many reasons. They were more real hip-hop/NYC hip-hop than "nerd rap" they just happened to record on labels like landspeed and fondle em. I still fukks with Eastern Conference...Mr. Eon is atill a dope rapper to me although now I heard he hustles real estate.

 

[Unknown Poster]

I would have to agree with a lot of these artists being boring like Anti-Pop Consortium or something i remember... but Rhymesayers has 1 of the greatest rappers to me: Brother Ali

ANTI POP CONSORTIUM!!!! one of the most underrated hip-hop groups of all time!

I bought Tragic Epilogue from Borders in 2000 after hearing some of their tracks on college radio hip-hop shows. They were and still are one of the most innovative yet hard to get into groups to ever grace hip-hop cause everything about them was so abstract...from their production to their own lyrics and rhymes. To say like this...they were like the 21st century version of The Last Poets but their production was more like abstract/electronica/IDM than traditional hip-hop. Which got them the attention of Warp Records in the UK and pretty soon they were touring Europe and getting write ups in The Wire and NME.

 

[blizzard man]

take aesop off this list bro

ill let you have the rest on there.

aesop is the only indie rapper whos been improving with every release since the def jux era tho. facts.


el-p still out here killin it and his albums are solid. hes handling RTJ production and if southern rappers past killer mike and TI gave El a chance, that would change the Atlanta sound like that dude Goose was saying on twitter.

imagine more songs with El-P and ti after Big Beast?



most southern rappers over el-p would sound bonkers. its like that track migos did with alchemist

atmosphere still out here doin things bigger than ever before for indie cats.

most of those indie dudes fell by the wayside cuz their music wasnt timeless but perfect for the time rap existed in there, but to call it all trash is wildly off base.

bazooka tooth was a minor stumble, but it still had jams, especially one of the greatest verses of that era, the second verse on this:


he keeps the L,S,D,L,S,D pattern the whole 24 bar verse while rapping about his experience with LSD. migos aint doing that breh. aside from that the album had 'limelighters(w/ camp lo), bazooka tooth, we're famous, mars attacks, frijoles and 11:35

Fast Cars, Dangers, Fire and Knives was a small project, but id say the only real takeaway was zodiaccupuncture, and winner take all. it wasnt super memorable.

None shall Pass was fire and i think he handled the majority of the production as well.



Skelethon was crazy and he handled the bulk of the production as well.

(ive always wanted to do a music video for this joint)





sorry to go on a tirade, but as much as i love current rap shyt, im still a stan for some of that indie stuff, espeically Aesop, so seeing people try to revise history is corny

aesop is an anomaly thats been able to last past the crash of the indie era. theres not many of those dudes out here. the fact that he makes crazy beats seems to get overlooked a ton as well.

theres still plenty of random one offs and loosie tracks from that era that are still hella dope. maybe i will start a thread dedicated to just that.