Long Post in-coming, you've been warned. Go to a different thread if this isn't your thing. Thanks!

I've posted about Cannibal Ox before and their song, Atom. In my opinion, this was hip-hop's last, true scream before it became fully corporatized and controlled. These artists and groups were it's last breath of authentic, organic air. Only El-P, the producer (and sometimes rapper) of the crew, along with the owner of the indie label, DefJux, made it into the mainstream although there were rappers in the crews they associated with, that were lyrically, much more talented than him.

In the Early 00's, underground hip-hop was considered a completely different thing than mainstream hip-hop, and underground artists looked at mainstream artists as clowns. They never wanted to go mainstream. Now, everyone thinks you start underground, then go mainstream. These artists chose to stay UNDERGROUND (think the indie label, rhymesayers, if you're familiar with the artists Slug/Murs/Living Legends). Some groups these members were in and collaborated through include: The Weathermen, name taken from The Weather Underground, Cardboard City (because they always hung out in the slums, kicked it and got high with the homeless when they weren't in the studio, and included the tragic stories of some of the homeless people they encountered in their songs), Smut Peddlers, as well as the infamous rap label, DefJux, where all these underground rappers were housed.

DefJux was an underground, "indie" label, owned by the now famous El-P, I still enjoy his music, but he sold out big time, and fucked over all his friends, everyone on the label, and everyone who brought him into the spotlight. He was mainly a producer (El-Producto), but started rapping slowly and Cocaine and Ego went to his head. He destroyed something beautiful as a sacrifice to become an artist in the mainstream consciousness, doing shows with Killer Mike for Hillary Clinton (someone he once used to rap about's corruption), as well as Bernie Sanders.

Just to check them out and get a feel for each artist and their content, give each song a 30-45 second sample-listen. Their musical sound (production) varies, but the content of their music and the way they approach it with metaphors, philosophy and story-telling, is what drew them together as a group.

Yak Ballz - Fire in the Sky

Yak Ballz - Suicide

Cannibal Ox - Scream Phoenix

Cannibal Ox - Iron Galaxy

Cage - Agent Orange

Cage - Too Heavy For Cherubs

Cage - Among the Sleep

Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass

Aesop Rock - Shrunk

Despot - Crap Artists

Despot - Get Rich or Try Dying

Copywrite, Ft. Smut Peddlers/Cage & Camu - Tower of Babel

Copywrite - With Us, Ft. Cage/Weathemen Crew

Camu Tao - King of Hearts - He wrote this whole album while dying of stage 4 cancer. He would spend all moments in the hospital writing and coming up with meledies, all outside time was spent in the studio. He felt like he had to get this last record out before he died, it was never finished and released in the demo version - Camu's last public photo he released from the studio after receiving cancer treatment

Camu Tao - Hold The Floor

El-P - Smithereens/Stop Crying

El-P - Drones Over Brooklyn

You'll notice, each artist is very different from the other musically - however, all are telling real stories, or musing over life and certain philosophies. This is what made them such a super-group

Not many people know this, but if weren't for the artist Cage in this group, Eminem wouldn't exist as an artist (or at least in the form he did and does exist in, and may have never gotten popular.. His come-up story isn't 100% real, maybe 70. He bit many tracks from Cage in the late 90s, and Cage was his first rap beef, and the only artist people consider him truly losing to, which is unheard of for Eminem). Eminem heard Cage's music, copied his flow and his almost "horror-core" style of rapping (Cage wasn't a horror-core rapper; he was rapping about his real life. He had been through a lot of fucked up shit, and was very literal on one line, while using vulgar, dark, but insanely clever metaphors for an experience in the next line, while making it rhyme. That's what got him big - using insane metaphors that made sense that a normal person, would have never normally thought of, while literally telling you a story about his life or someone else's.

He was born on a military base to an alcoholic (and then heroin addict, who used to have him help him shoot him up at ages 5-6) father and an insane mother, he was forced into Stoney Lodge Psychiatric Hospital in his teens (which was shut down due to the neglect, terrible treatment and deaths they caused) which he stayed in for a few years (and was used in studies to test Prozac and other antidepressants: "I did not like working for this hospital. It was awful and it was shut down. I was extremely unhappy working at this facility. Dangerous work environment with Adolescent patients violent.", "Hospital is closed now. It was unsafe for the patients and the staff. Closed by the state. The pay was decent and due to short staffing the overtime was available if you wanted to work it but there are two sharp ends to that sword, due to short staffing you were mandated to work often."). His father left his mom at a young age, and his mom turned to drugs. After he got out, he started rapping about his experiences, especially the effect the Psych-Ward had on him.

Philosophical musings, mental illness, struggles, the esoteric and thought provoking songs, were what you could expect from this group of artists, written by everyday people like you and me. There was no "Corporate Gate-Keeper" - if you had a nice flow, good lyrics, and a story to tell, and uploaded it to YouTube during this decade, that was it - like minded artists reached out and connected and formed groups that built fan-bases almost on scale of industry artists, but refused any deals. They weren't industry plants with a pretty face. Some are still around, some have died due to drug-overdoses (a good majority of the group did suffer from depression, and Camu Tao was Cage's best friend. As soon as Camu Tao died from cancer at a young age, El-P ended DefJux, the label they were all signed under, leaving them all fucked when they had just spent the last 10 years working and building together (that had become their job, they were all in their mid 20's to early 30's at this point). All but El-P. El-P formed Run The Jewels with Killer Mike, and started politicin' for Hillary Clinton and Bernie.

Sorry for the long post, if you read this, I hope you found it interesting and found maybe 1 or 2 songs you enjoy. I guarantee you, if you give all the songs from my list a short, 30-45 second sample listen (and are a fan of the hip-hop genre), especially real stuff, you'll find at least one song you'll be playing on repeat for the next week. All of these artists are very different from each other.

If you take a peak at the hip-hop that was being released during that time period in the main-stream, you'll see songs and artists you don't even remember because of how terrible they were (this was when hip-hop was becoming corporatized - after the Wu Tang Clan prime era). Cage did very bad after the split, (his album following the break-up of the group "Depart From Me, I Never Knew You" was basically a diary of that year following the death of Camu, and the end of DefJux, with him roaming the US trying to keep his sanity); his musical style changed a lot, but if you listen to the album in order, it's still a very easily deceptive story that's being told. He's still making music and has worked with Kid Cudi.

"During his time on Eastern Conference, Interscope Records showed interest in signing Cage despite Eminem also being on their label"

"Because Cage felt that he should no longer play a character, he began to take on a more open writing style,[4] and signed with Definitive Jux, where he released his second studio album Hell's Winter, on September 20, 2005. Palko is quoted as saying "I make progressive rap, it's as simple as that. [...]"

Imho, if Camo never passed, and DefJux never departed, they would have become a heavily influential super-group due to their creativity and different sounds they were only just beginning to develop. It's a shame what hip-hop has turned into (not to say it's all bad).