Imo:

In the 90s I felt like there was a lot of people always doing high effort projects ALL the time and it ends up with a lot of crazy discogs for many - which makes it hard to nail down a favorite that's constantly shifting

In the 2000s I feel like the projects a lot of the time wasn't high effort, BUT, the projects a lot of the time are consistent and a good enough level throughout the discog for most - a lot of rappers I wouldn't consider "favorite" and don't have that strong of a feeling towards but I still think they're cool overall

In the 2010s I feel like a lot of artists would be high effort into one or maybe two projects only (album and/or mixtapes), then the rest of their discog would end up with a lot "good enough" or below - a lot of Rappers I WANT to be my favorite base off of that one or two REALLY HIGH EFFORT crazy project, but how the rest of their discog shakes out prevents me from doing so

Idk, I was thinking this when doing my "top 10 rappers of every decade thread", lemme know if I'm vibing sumn here with this rough idea.

This is the top 10 of every decade thread btw:

ktt2.com/your-top-10-of-every-decade-groups-count-32599185

2000's is slept on tbh.

Here's 50 great albums from 50 different artists. The fact that I didn't have to repeat the same artist is insane.

90s drums just consistently go harder. Something dark was in the air back then lol

A***og production with low bitrate and vinyl sampling

Even VSTs can't really emulate that sound in a way where it feels real, you need original hardware to do that properly

Kinda over generalizing

Each decade had artists who made the effort and those who just kinda made music.

This + production costs

Take in even if u wanted to drop some bullshit u needed to invest back then