In this time where everyone a clone I keep thinking of Wayne Ye or even someone like Doom or Spitta who completely kinda created their own lane, aesthetic and subculture almost vs everyone now being some derivative of carti keef etc

Who are other rappers like this in your opinion who completely made their “thing” from near scratch? An opposite example would be how Ross is kinda just a southern Biggie lane continuation

(Obviously tribe —> influence kanye, hov and wayne etc but Tribe wouldnt make a lot of the songs Ye made same for Hov and wayne etc)

My bad if this dont make sense. Was inspired by that carti curren$y influence ig post and how both of them kinda fall into this

It can be aesthetics, style, beat style or lyrics. Wanna see the names everyone comes up with

Slick Rick
Rakim

i still dont think theres anyone like slick rick tbh, he's basically one of a kind in terms of his rapping style and tone

Slick Rick is another one who I specifically think of all the time with how his style captivated a rap game without much pop/“hit” precedent

And you can hear his direct DNA (in like a Quavo/Future/Thug influence the rest of their peers sense) in Biggie, Snoop, Fresh Prince

@op do you think aesthetics/style count in this case? Was going to say something along the lines of a SpaceGhostPurrp, BONES, or Yung Lean

RXKNephew
Smino
454

Thats almost exactly what I mean maybe i need to reword. Its not just lyrically, everyone you named fits in that thing of their look, beat style and flow/sound didnt exist before them. Its fascinating to me given how singular everyones approach is now

Max B & Lil B are the predecessors of Neph

No it’s too distant

Yeah neph likes Max and lil b but their styles are way too different

I could make connections like that to any artist mentioned itt

Except maybe these 80’s rappers cuz they came up at the beginning so ofc no one came up before them

i'd probably add a lot of underground rappers from the 90s-00s.
Dälek
Atmosphere
El-P (would say Def Jux as a whole but he was also responsible for Cannibal Ox)
DOOM (not really underground anymore but was considered at the time)
etc

I was just getting into Saafir and feels like he fits into this group of artists

Chief keef

Yuno miles

El-P was doing some crazy s*** in 1997 prod-wise lol

None of this generation of rappers as it stands

DMX might objectively be the last (major) pure one tho overall, given you can highly argue that all the “new” top guys after were the someone else prior of their generation just with a new twist, ie Ja Rule/Em/Nelly/50/Ye/Wayne/Nicki/Keef/Drake/Kendrick

Nav since he's the first brown boy to get it popping

Rocky easy

Well if we’re being loose with it then we can just name everyone with obvious influences who did their own new thing with it tbh. Like Drake for example; he invented a new lane of Rap-r&b and a genre-songwriting device of melodic hard rapping in an entire section into straight singing for another section then soft melodic rapping in the next section.

it's a shame he ended up as the human manifestation of reddit because in his early career he genuinely pushed the genre forward in a number of hugely positive and experimental ways

Kool Keith and Cage were some of the prototypes for that surreal, almost comedic, horrorcore style that Eminem got famous for during the Slim Shady EP/LP days.

Anticon was mostly pseudo-intellectual indie rap trash imo, but that CloudDead project definitely felt like early 2010s proto-cloud rap.

Kool G Rap is one of the pioneers of mafiaso and technical rhyming too.

Bone Thugs had such a unique melodic style of rapping too.

Lil Uzi Vert is definitely one of the first to adopt that eccentric style that defined a lot of late 2010s SoundCloud rap but mostly combined the feminine/emo elements with braggadocio, non-emo music.

Lil B

Kid Cudi when he first came out was refreshing as hell. Especially before he got signed to GOOD music. There was something so raw and fresh about dude. This video made me a fan

Phonte was highkey doing what Drake was doing before Drake but he was underground/Indie so it's not really factored in.

Phonte even dropped a melancholic R&B album called "Leave It All Behind" about getting over a bad relationship in 2008.

But Drake still was unique for mainstream standards though.

Eminem, Nelly and Kanye(mainstream wise)