BBVL, I understand where you’re coming from, and hope I can give you some pointers.
I think that in the last year in particular, indie rap took a huuuuge dump and mainstream rap got surprisingly weird and interesting. I honestly can’t name a single good indie rap record from the past year, whereas I can think of about five completely mainstream rap records (Paul Wall - “The People’s Champ,” Bun-B - “Trill,” etc.) that blew me away.
That aside, here’s some modern stuff you might like:
Madlib - West Coast lo-fi king known for his vast knowledge and sampling of lost funk, soul, and jazz classics. His best records are Lootpack’s Soundpieces: Da Antidote and Quasimoto’s The Unseen. The former was his group and the latter is a solo album where he plays two identities, Madlib and Quasimoto. Both are amazing records steeped in dusty, crackly samples and thick beats.
MF Doom - he used to be known as Zev Love X when he was in the early-nineties group KMD, and now he’s gone solo. He makes all of his own beats, favoring weird seventies and eighties elevator music funk and cartoon music, and is probably the single most skilled emcee currently making music, often nesting multi-syllable rhymes within other rhymes and so on. His debut, Operation Doomsday, remains his strongest effort, but his album under the name King Gheedorah is pretty hot as well. He did a joint record with Madlib under the name Madvillain, but save that one for when you’re already a fan of both guys.
You also might want to check out some of the late-eighties and early-nineties rap that came out of the “Native Tongues” movement, which to make a long story short was a NYC-centric scene where rappers rejected growing “gangsta” rap and instead looked to old jazz and soul music and afrocentrism for inspiration. A Tribe Called Quest, who you already mentioned, were the breakout stars of this movement, but don’t forget De La Soul (check out Three Feet High and Rising) and the Jungle Brothers (Done by the forces of nature is their bes record). Both bands explored similar sonic and emotional territory to Tribe, and I think you’ll like both.
Keeping on the old school tip, don’t forget Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth - their album Mecca and the Soul Brother is one of the finer rap albums of the past 25 years, and is really the perfect marriage of gorgeous, jazzy production and insightful, intelligent, and introspective rapping. “They reminisce over you” is one of my top-five rap songs of all time, and I think it’ll be one of yours once you check out the album.
Before heading elsewhere, don’t forget to jet over to early-nineties Southern California with The Pharcyde. In an age of gangsta posing, they were goofy and irreverent - a sort of “Black Beastie Boys,” if you will - but they were skilled on the mic and the beats were definitely hot. Their full-length Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde is considered their best moment, but there’s also a greatest hits compilation out there that you can cop instead.
Back to NYC, have you checked out Gang Starr? I think that their name scares off a lot of would-be fans; they image some sort of violently-angry gangsta badasses, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. There’s a reason that DJ Premier is revered as one of the greatest beatmakers of all time; one listen to a track like “Full Clip” will you have crapping your pants at the pure genius of how he can put together a simple beat, a great sample or two, and make it the greatest thing you’ve ever heard. Instead of picking up one of their many full-length records, I suggest heading straight for the Full Clip: A decade of Gang Starr “greatest hits” compilation. Every track on it is a straight-killer, and you’ll wonder how you ever lived without “Ex girl to the next girl,” “Full Clip,” “Mass Appeal,”…
That should give you some stuff to get started with. Don’t be afraid to check out the late-eighties and early-nineties in particular; there’s so much great stuff there, and I think it’s the moment when sampling reached its height (the copyright laws weren’t enforced as insanely, but primitive technology limited producers to using samples in creative and inventive ways rather than just jacking 32-bars Puffy-style). In general, think of it like this - rap music came out, did a bunch of great stuff through the early nineties, then the commercial crap took over, giving birth to a highly prolific and creative indie scene, then (in the last two years) the indie stuff ran out of steam while the mainstream stuff got creative and weird again (with the exception of the mindless junk like 50 Cent and so on). That “Laffy Taffy” song is twice as weird as anything that Anticon’s ever released!
), one of the best major label releases in 2005.