It's not really a particular sound or a time period or even a method of consumption. It's a consumption pattern

When gangsta rap and bling were popping in the early and mid 00s, a strong counterbalance to that was a different way of obtaining and then consuming music through local artists, less known musicians, actually getting deep into hip hop as a genre and culture. This was known as backpacking and people who did that were backpackers. what made them stand out was their hostility towards certain brands of hip hop like popular rappers, blending of pop and hip hop sound at the time, production choices, topics, etc.

Without getting deep into the history and development of that I can tell you that the same thing now happens with another sort of underground music. In a situation where 'authenticity' is slightly off now due to how internet changed hip hop, people want to be regarded as more 'heady' than the rest by propping younger talent, people vision not focused around a particular album or song, ones that arent present on DSPs with output scattered throughout their channels. Not as prerequisites but as something that represents a counter-mainstream lane of hip hop best (part of my idea is that this underground rejects old underground music and current lyrical artists as well). This is why you get people here talking about random dudes with 19k followers on ig as 'you dont know em but they're hot'. It's that same pattern of trying to fish out the next (not consecutively but probably coexisting) best thing against more acclaimed musicians

Way that this pattern works its not really backpack lyrical rappers that are now getting the underground treatment, but more musically inclined and less substantial 'rap musicians'. Underground is predicated on younger people driving it, and young people now are into what's more in line with music of younger people today i.e. melodic trap, rage beats, etc.

As you can see this isnt a fleshed out study but moreso an outline and I think its solid enough to warrant some discussion. If I see one of you replying with something along the lines of 'we all know this' im calling your mom a hoe btw

Regarding this current underground being very in lane with 'mainstream' sounds and musicians e.g. carti I would say it works in the same way it worked with Hov being very lyrical and mainstream but still rejected by underground rappers in favor of other lyrical rappers. These musical characteristics don't mean 1:1 transition, I think the focus should be on distribution and more fuller vision of any given artist

this pattern also works on more traditional underground rappers, see MIKE who's very much rap's 'middle class' and people around him on the come up like Niontay who id say counts as underground

Ah f*** me I just made the whole connection

u need to connect with some b****es

didn't read all this but true asf my g 💯

that's that record where you say you got molested

crayz u complain about the state of this site and then make posts like this in a thread with some effort in it

but yes it's always been that way. The way of the hipster or the person who searches for novelty

u got me

hell yeah brother

Aw, f*** me, I just made the whole connection

damn...

and people say the heart part 6 doesnt have bars...

Ah f*** me you just made the whole connection!

@op good clarification and a good explanation on why aesop rock and spaceghostpurrp and KA and LAZERDIM700 and axxturel would all be technically considered underground rappers but extremely different from one another