The 30 Best Underground Hip-Hop Albums

posted by on June 27, 2012 in Features, Lists
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underground hip hop The 30 Best Underground Hip Hop Albums

By Confusion & Jon Tanners

Underground hip-hop doesn’t exist anymore, at least not like it used to. 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. Maybe it was when Def Jux died. Maybe it was when “underground” was replaced with internet buzz acts on the fast track to major label deals.

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. Seven or eight years ago, if you said you were into underground hip-hop, people knew exactly what you meant. 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.

Here are the 30 best underground hip-hop albums.

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  • http://twitter.com/vallyshy White Kanye

    I would’ve liked to see Zion I’s Mind Over Matter but there are so many good “underground” albums to choose from; don’t bitch if your favorite MC didn’t make the list

  • Menosmal

    Great list overall and the comments justified each album well. Crazy how I have most of these albums. I am surprised by the lack of Project Blowed affliated albums and dearth of LA underground albums. No Freestyle Fellowship? No Living Legends? I’m keeping this list though.

  • Danny C

    No Chino XL??

  • http://www.facebook.com/GodlessGOD Bod GodlessGod

    Dope list. I would threw a Shawn Lov album in there though. http://shawnlov.bandcamp.com/

  • http://twitter.com/dankohu Dan K.

    Thank you! :)

  • Gavin

    As a white person, I agree.

  • penis

    How is movies for the blind hit and miss? One of the best albums of all time.

  • Colin McAuliffe

    One album from 2007 and nothing after? Shame current music hasn’t been producing worthwhile underground albums.

  • nam3

    not really underground i would say

  • Wax_Lyrical

    In my humble opinion I don’t think Madvillainy was as important an album as Funcrasher Plus, The Listening, Inner City Griots for example, these albums were not only good but were apexes and culture defining of the type of hiphop that would follow, they respectively brought something new and unheard of. Having said that I have listened to a good 80% of the stuff on the list and if it was up to me really I don’t think I would’ve added them, but then it’s my own bias :) I won’t really say your list is bad, cause our tastes are different and I respect that, however if I were to interject I would definitely put Company Flow’s album as 1 and go as far as to say One Man Army’s/One Belo – SONOGRAM was better than Binary Star’s – Waterworld, not that it was a bad album . I’d also include albums such as : ATU – Mood Pieces, FFS – Inner City Griots, RR – Architechnology, Thaione Davis – Situation Renaissance, Daedelus & Radioincative & Busdriver – The Weather; Haiku D’Etat; Omid – Beneath The Surface….just to scratch the surface.

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