The eMusic Dozen: Underground Hip-Hop

In South Central Los Angeles, in defiant opposition to the G-funk gangsta-isms of the early '90s, nimble-tongued experimental rappers Freestyle Fellowship kick-started a revolution by pushing every envelope in their reach. Evolving from boundary-ignoring open-mic nights at LA's Good Life Café, MCs Aceyalone, Micah 9, Self Jupiter and J-Sumbi smelted a unique rhyme style that birthed the mind-boggling debut To Whom It May Concern. The Fellowship drop political and spiritual cluster-bombs with rapid and complex streams of jazzbo poetics, free-form syncopation and vocal timbres that bounce erratically between threatening monotone and giddy nursery rhyme.

No one represents the ideal of the relentlessly idiosyncratic MC better than cult hero Kool Keith. Since his days in polysyllabic, science-addled late-'80s crew Ultramagnetic MCs, Keith has built his reputation on being a deranged chameleon, changing costumes, concepts, personae and monikers with practically every album (he's been sex-crazed space surgeon Dr. Octagon, cannibalistic psychopath Dr. Dooom and futuristic funkster Black Elvis, among others). On his joyously lewd "pornocore" mastur-piece Sex Style, his irregular flows (and freaky, lollipop-penetrating sexual deviancy) are as off-kilter as the buckin, synth-heavy spacefunk of producer KutMasta Kurt.

In 1995, the Bomb Hip-Hop label released Return Of The D.J., an MC-less compilation of turntable tricksters, virtuosos, shredders and wax-melters; reestablishing the DJ (now officially known as "turntablist") as an artful, musical, dexterous force to be reckoned with. And no one was more artful, musical or dexterous than New York crew X-ecutioners — battle vets Rob Swift, Roc Raida, Mista Sinista and Total Eclipse. X-Pressions was a watershed moment, showcasing the turntable as an instrument capable of Halen-esque eruptions of high-velocity showboating or sublime musical pastiches.

Born under the SoleSides banner in 1992, the Bay Area Quannum collective — skillful metaphysicists Blackalicious, lyrical deconstructionists Latyrx and sampler virtuoso DJ Shadow — have consistently made the most luxurious — and diverse — funk around. Blackalicious MC Gift of Gab will dabble in introspective neo-soul and faith-based consciousness rap just as soon as drop the stunningly alliterative letter-by-letter brag-rap "A to G." Underneath, producer Chief Xcel creates a lush bed of laid back grooves that recall everything from David Axelrod to Fela Kuti to the Headhunters.

While all underground hip-hoppers conjure the renegade spirit of the old school, few take it as literally as People Under the Stairs. This pair of b-boy revisionists look, sound and feel like 1991 — no keyboards, no drum machines, no ProTools, no bull. Purists in the most extreme form of the word, Thes One and Double K make all their music from looped breaks and samples scavenged from the record piles of musty California basements (don't miss the crate-diggers guidebook "43 Labels I Like"). PUTS are gritty, jazzy, raw... in essence, pure hip-hop.

While other underground crews were testing boundaries, Oakland's neo-Dadaist Anticon crew was ignoring them entirely. They found their success mostly on the Internet through stormy beats, whined non-sequiturs and puzzling "flows" that careened about like Ornette Coleman sax solos. Bearded belligerent angry-white-guy Sole, still the most accessible of the Anticon gang, "raps" in bloated paragraphs that rarely rhyme. Sole's debut, Bottle Of Humans, is a transfixing jumble of Faulknerian stream-of consciousness that dissects himself, society and God-knows-what.