One that comes to mind, even though he's one of my favorites, is Big L. According to wiki he signed with a record label in 1992 and 6-7 years later at the time of his death he had released an album that was only 48 minutes long (Lifestylez) and still hadn't finished his second one (The Big Picture). He had a few other posthumous albums but a lot of those tracks had recycled verses, so it seems like he wasn't recording much at all.
What are some other examples?
I think that had more to do to with Columbia not knowing what to do with him. He dropped Devils Son as a promo in 92 and no one even wanted to take credit for the beat because it was so controversial. Its credited to Buckwild/Craig Boogie/Lord Finesse/Showbiz, even though its clearly just a Showbiz beat.
He had a bunch of stuff recorded as early as 92-93 that never made the album and was finally released officially back in 2017 as the Devils Son EP. IIRC, he had to keep changing the album to sound current cause Sony had him on the shelf so long, and Finesse said they made him do more positive songs like Street Struck cause the rest of the album was so dark. He signed the same time as Nas, but both him and Kurious dropped before he did.
I think if the label would've let him drop in early 94 instead of 95 he probably would've been able to get off Columbia earlier than 97, go independent and do more work without major label interference.
