Man yea - that timeframe you speak of is hella unheralded, even if it doesn't feel like it around these parts (and thank god for this board, otherwise I'd have like 3 friends to discuss this shit with lol)

But yea that whole string of albums, my god. Just classic after classic after classic IMO. Such incredible creativity coming out of all these likeminded artists. Obviously a ton of them worked together and/or were inspired by eachother, and we were the benefactors.

I'm also with you on the ground I had to cover. I'd bought Stakes is High and Things Fall Apart in 8th grade. Not sure what compelled me to grab Stakes but either way, those were sort of my "starter" albums for music deeper than the mainstream hip hop I'd listened to up to that point. And even though I didn't really know it at the time, those were my intros to Common as well - who would eventually become my favorite MC.

I was still primarily mainstream listening freshman year until I copped Book of Human Language and One Day It'll All Make Sense and it was off and running from there. That's when I caught up on Comm's prior albums, then De La, The Roots, etc. And it was tough because I had to do all this catching up while still keeping up with the current output of those artists and so many others, a ton of which you mentioned below.

I call it "tough" but I just mean in terms of time - I obviously loved every minute of this discovery process lol.


>Soundbombing 2 is perhaps the most pivotal moment in hip hop
>for me, because that was my gateway to Common, Mos Def,
>Talib/Reflection Eternal and Black Star, Dilated, Pharoahe,
>Company Flow, High And Mighty.
>
>I'd heard Com on Illadelph and TFA, but it was 1999 that had
>me checking for his albums.
>
>For me, SB2 was a gateway drug of epic proportions, and kicked
>open the floodgates.
>
>The wave that hit next is, IMO, criminally under heralded.
>
>LWFC, BOB, Internal Affairs, TOT, Fantastic Vol 2, and The
>Platform made for a monster slate on it's own. Lesser albums
>by High and Mighty, even. Hi Teknology dropped in 01 to keep
>that train rolling along.
>
>Even then, I had so much ground to cover just to get caught
>up, with Black Star, ODIAMS, Resurrection, Funcrusher, SB 1,
>looking for shit like MOOD, discovering Kool Keith, looking
>for Rugged Man shit off the strength of his oddball cut off
>SB2...
>