Fake For Real

By 1999, the excellence of the newly released Operation Doomsday album was not a surprise, to those already familiar with New-York's underground rap scene. By then, MF Doom had already released several great singles on Fondle'em, Bobbito's iconic indie rap label. And all of them were compiled on this opus, recorded by a man who was not exactly a newcomer. The guy, indeed, was Daniel Dumile, a.k.a. Zev Love X, an ex-rapper from the band K.M.D., who had reoriented his career after the death of his colleague and brother Subroc. Moving forward, he would start hiding his face behind a mask, and become rap's underground super-hero.

By the early 2000's, the Living Legends were the archetypical indie hip-hop band. They were highly revered in the backpackers international underground, where they fully deserved their name. In the Wu-Tang Clan way, this collective was made of various subgroups and solo artists, and people from countries as far as Japan and the Netherlands were affiliated to them. Thanks to such a network, their aura was global; and they reached a high standing without any help from major labels.

The Juggaknots are hip-hop's best kept secret. Some discovered them by 1999, thanks to their proximity with the Weathermen, or to Breezly Brewin's contribution to A Prince Amongst Thieves, a concept album from Prince Paul. Some others, through the incandescent "The Fire in Which you Burn", learned that the band was part of the Indelible Emcees collective, along with Company Flow and J-Treds. And some others knew that the producer Buddy Slim (a.k.a. Fever the Kid, or BMS), the rapper Breezly Brewin (a.k.a. The Brewin) – and the femcee Heroine (a.k.a. Queen Herawin), not a permanent member – had released a fantastic record in 1996, the second album on Fondle'em after the Cenobites full-length, soon to become one of the most expensive vinyl records on the underground market.

We already said it here, with full of conviction: all the albums Radioinactive ever released, absolutely all, are indispensable. Yes, all of them, including Fo' Tractor, the rerelease of an old cassette full of lo-fi tracks recorded by the mid-1990's, just after the rapper's adventures with Log Cabin and West Coast Workforce, two crucial bands from California's incredibly fertile underground hip-hop scene.

Among the great records released by Peanuts & Corn between Mcenroe's Ethics EP and his definitive Disenfranchised, the first album from Gruf deserves special praises. After he collaborated with Twisted Spirits, its successor Frek Sho, and Fermented Reptile, the bald rapper with native people origins delivered one of P&C's most solid and constant projects. Though Druidry was not overly original, it was deeply personal, and once again produced by Mcenroe at his very best.

Though 1996 is generally considered as the start of the indie rap era, 1997 is the year of its classics. The first Jedi Mind Tricks album, The Psycho-Social, Chemical, Biological, and Electro-Magnetic Manipulation of Human Consciousness – yes indeed, its title was that long – is undoubtedly one of them. It is, actually, not too far from Funcrusher Plus, with its dark mood, unsettling sounds and obtuse lyrics.

The Cold Vein was the first important album released by Def Jux, and the first El-P, the label's founder, had entirely produced since Company Flow broke up. In addition, it had been heralded by two striking singles, "Iron Galaxy" and "Straight off the D.I.C.". Due to this, it had been expected with lots of hope and anxiety by the underground sphere. And it would not disappoint it. Actually, this record would be the very climax of the indie rap movement. By 2001, after lots of stirring in the shadows, this kind of hip-hop had finally reached a certain amount of visibility and interest, in the media. And music critics would love the first album of Cannibal Ox.

By 2002, Peanuts & Corn had produced a large collection of impeccable rap albums. Its founder, however, hadn't released anything since his Ethics EP, apart from the side-project Billy's Vision. The main guy behind the label had stayed in the shadow, producing the work of others, or contributing to bands, instead of investing into his own solo career. His first real album indeed, Disenfranchised, wouldn't be released before 2003. A few months before, though, Mcenroe had released another EP, which proved to be a little bit more than just an appetizer.

Slug, Sole, Alias, Sage Francis, Yoni Wolf... By focusing their raps on intimate and confessional lyrics, all these artsy and hypersensitive White men, plus a few others, have been pioneers in a new kind of hip-hop. The one, however, who pushed this trend to its most extreme, was a certain Brad Hamers, from Phlegm.