The Independents, Part 1: They All Can’t Be Tupac

A 60-track chain through indie/underground hip hop, and the group text that started it.

A few weeks ago I sent my friends a text: “If you aren’t listening to this album, then you ain’t really living.”

The album was Czarface Meets Frankie Pulitzer. If you don’t know CZARFACE, it is Inspectah Deck of Wu-Tang Clan plus 7L & Esoteric, a DJ and MC out of Boston who come from a whole other branch of indie hip hop. They are a supergroup. I see it as the career Inspectah Deck never got.

Here is the story. In the mid 90s, while the rest of the Clan was dropping classic solo records, a flood in RZA’s basement studio ruined INS’ chance to get out with them, as it destroyed every instrumental made for Deck’s album. It should have been 1995. It was remade and came out in 1999. Deck had to produce a lot of it himself, without most of the original RZA beats the others got. And you can argue it never got its moment. Now, CZARFACE started in 2013. More than a decade in, Deck is in his fifties and still going strong.

Then there is Frankie Pulitzer, who is Tom Hardy. Yes, that Tom Hardy. He recorded a mixtape back in 1999 as Tommy No 1, years before anyone knew his face, so this is less a movie star trying rap than a rapper who took a very long detour. He can rhyme, and even my son had to admit, decently. He might be the best movie star to ever do it, and I am down to argue about that.

And the guest list: Busta Rhymes, Method Man, El-P. That last name is the one that got me pulling threads.

One friend pushed back. We all grew up in Southern California in the shadow of gangsta rap, and to him this stuff changed tempo too much. Maybe even jazzy. I told him they all can’t be Tupac. You need to give the underground a chance. Somebody brought up GZA’s Liquid Swords, which is a fair card to play: November 1995, recorded in that same RZA basement, the same year Deck’s album was supposed to land. They were naming the Wu solo record that made it. I was pushing the solo run that took twenty more years to show up.

So I told them I could send them some real great art. Some bangers.

Then I did what I always do. Instead of ten bangers, I went on a quest and came back with a 60-track genealogy. Honestly, I have secretly wanted to do this. And as always, my projects need a goal. Why not state my opinion!

Hitting a stride in its mature age

Here is the claim this whole series hangs on: underground hip hop is hitting its stride in its mature age.

Hip hop was supposed to be a young person’s game. Look at what is on this list anyway. The Czarface album is from 2026. So is “Repentance” from Talib Kweli and Planet Asia. Atmosphere’s Jestures is 2025. Kurious put out Majician in 2024, executive produced by MF DOOM before he passed. Black Thought and Danger Mouse made Cheat Codes in 2022. Felt came back with Felt 4 U in 2020. These are veterans. Most of them have bodies of work that span decades, and they are not coasting. I’d say they are even continuing to reinvent the genre.

I am not telling you this music is topping the charts. The Czarface record peaked at 96 on the Billboard 200. What I am telling you is that the people who built this corner of the culture are making some of their best work right now. As true MCs and producers, on their own terms, and more people are showing up for it than ever.

I saw it for myself. In June 2025 I was at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle for Wu-Tang’s farewell tour, and Run The Jewels opened. El-P came up in Company Flow, the first track on this list, and there he was working an arena, with Inspectah Deck on that same stage later in the night. That did not used to be how this went.

This is my thing

I am a white kid from Southern California who grew up in the shadow of gangsta rap and watched it become the giant. We still feel its waves. But I found my love in the underground, in all four elements: the MC, the DJ, the breakers, the graffiti writers. Of most of those I was a fan. Of one I was a participant. I may have even dabbled in graffiti. But enough of that.

Mostly, I think I have just paid a lot of attention for a long time. I use the music daily: to motivate me before speaking, and through the day when I need to be heads down, getting creative, or just finishing my work.

And I often joke, but it is somewhat true. Any time someone wants to talk hip hop, or asks a question, or notices my MF DOOM merch, I start in. This MC was in a group with that MC, who is tied to this other MC, and now I am trying to steer us toward my favorite producers. Somewhere in there I notice I am the only one geeking. It is hard to find an outlet to discuss it, but this is my thing. So let’s use the blog.

What I mean by independent

I am taking some liberties with the word, and I would rather say so up front.

Independent here does not mean a contract status. It means where you came from and who you work with. If I went by whose logo is on the record, this list falls apart fast, and so does every other list like it:

• Gangsta rap, the giant itself, started independent. Ruthless Records was Eazy-E’s own label, and its early releases went out through an independent distributor.
• MF DOOM went the other direction. His first group, KMD, was on Elektra. The label dropped them and shelved the album, and he rebuilt himself from nothing on tiny independent labels.
• Run The Jewels became giants without a major. They gave every album away as a free download.
• The last track on this playlist comes from a Warner Bros. album.

The traffic runs both ways. What holds this list together is lineage. Some of these artists became giants and still carry it. That is the test I am using, and the chain below is how I apply it.

Why a playlist

There is a practical reason this is a list and not a radio station. Apple Music will build you a station from one artist or one song. It will not build one from a dozen artists at once, and a dozen artists is the whole point here. Seed a station with DOOM and you will get some of these names back, because one artist really does tie to most of the others. What you get is an algorithm’s idea of similar. What you do not get is the story.

So the list is how I get to the kind of mix I am actually looking for: the handoffs, the pacing, the hip hop story told in order. If the service will not make it, I will.

How the list works

Every track hands off to the next through a shared person: a rapper, a producer, a crew, a label. That is not a gimmick. It is exactly how I talk about this music when someone asks about the DOOM shirt. The playlist is that conversation, written down.

A few honest notes before you press play:

• The chain’s real job is deciding who belongs. Pacing matters more to me than a perfect unbroken line, so a few handoffs are a scene or a city and not a person. I will point those out.
• The list starts at the root, with Company Flow. I came in at track 26. If you want to start where I did, jump to 26, then go back to the top and see where it all came from.
• I built this as an on-ramp. Some deeper cuts got pulled because they are a lot to hand someone on day one. They are waiting for a later volume built around the producers.
• I used AI to help me curate and work out this list. What it did and what I did is spelled out at the bottom, under How this got built.
• The list is 60 tracks and the public playlist shows 59. Track 5, Mr. Lif’s “Live from the Plantation”, is not in Apple’s catalog. It is in my copy from my own files. Go find it, because the last track on the list loops back to it.

Open the playlist in Apple Music

The Basement

Company Flow was El-P’s group. When it ended he founded Definitive Jux, and then he produced all of Cannibal Ox’s The Cold Vein in 2001. Aesop Rock’s Labor Days (2001, with Blockhead on the beats) and Mr. Lif’s I Phantom (2002) were label-mates. That is the basement this whole list is built on.

Tracks 8 and 9 are a mirrored pair from 2007. El-P guests on Aesop Rock’s album, then Aesop guests on El-P’s. Track 10 is Felt, which is Slug of Atmosphere and Murs. Aesop Rock produced that entire album, and that is your door into the next chapter.

1. Company Flow, “8 Steps to Perfection”
2. Cannibal Ox, “A B-Boy’s Alpha”
3. Cannibal Ox, “Pigeon”
4. Aesop Rock, “Daylight”
5. Mr. Lif, “Live from the Plantation”
6. El-P, “Deep Space 9mm”
7. Aesop Rock, “Bring Back Pluto”
8. Aesop Rock, “Gun for the Whole Family” (feat. El-P)
9. El-P, “Run the Numbers” (feat. Aesop Rock)
10. Felt, “Protagonists”

Collapse and Rebirth

Camu Tao died in 2008. El-P finished his album for him. Def Jux went on hiatus in 2010, and it could have ended there.

It did not. Aesop Rock moved toward Rhymesayers with Hail Mary Mallon and the self-produced Skelethon. And 2012 turned out to be the hinge year: Skelethon, El-P’s Cancer 4 Cure, and Killer Mike’s R.A.P. Music, which El-P produced top to bottom. The two toured together, and in 2013 they were Run The Jewels.

Watch Felt in this stretch. It is the same two rappers every time with a different producer per album: The Grouch, then Ant, then Aesop Rock, then Ant again. Tracks 22 and 23 are the Ant version, so you can hear what changing the producer does with the voices held constant. The step from Felt into “ooh la la” is a label link: Murs put out an album on Def Jux in 2003.

11. Camu Tao, “Major Team”
12. Hail Mary Mallon, “Grubstake”
13. Aesop Rock, “ZZZ Top”
14. El-P, “The Full Retard”
15. El-P, “Drones Over Bklyn”
16. Run The Jewels, “Run the Jewels”
17. Run The Jewels, “Legend Has It”
18. Aesop Rock, “Dorks”
19. Aesop Rock, “Lotta Years”
20. Atmosphere, “Chasing New York” (feat. Aesop Rock)
21. Atmosphere, “Puppets”
22. Felt, “Never’s Enough”
23. Felt, “Trees”
24. Run The Jewels, “ooh la la” (feat. Greg Nice & DJ Premier)
25. Killer Mike & El-P, “Don’t Let the Devil”

Enter the Villain

This is where I came in. Tracks 26 and 27 are the Czarface album from that group text, with Method Man on one and El-P on the other, which is how the first two chapters connect to this one. Then it is a short walk to the villain himself. CZARFACE made two full albums with MF DOOM, in 2018 and 2021.

From there, follow the people. Danger Mouse links Black Thought’s Cheat Codes, where “Belize” carries a DOOM verse, back to DANGERDOOM in 2005. Kurious is on DOOM’s ”?” from 1999, DOOM executive produced Kurious’s Majician before he passed, and Kurious turns up on Atmosphere’s “Kilowatts” in 2025. Then there is Mr. Fantastik, the mystery guest, on three tracks in a row. King Geedorah is DOOM under another name. Madvillain is DOOM plus Madlib, which hands us to the next chapter.

There is a second, subtler chain in here, and it is a big part of why I love the DOOM story. Wu-Tang is tied to comics all the way down: Method Man as Johnny Blaze, Ghostface as Tony Starks. DOOM took his name and his mask from Doctor Doom. CZARFACE is a comic book character with his own universe. And Tom Hardy has played a DC villain and a Marvel one. Masks and alter egos everywhere. Anyone who may have dabbled in graffiti gets this part: you pick a name, and then you become it.

This one is personal. I collected comics growing up, and my kids found the love for them too. So when a Wu-Tang MC, a comic book villain and the guy who played Bane and Venom all land on one record, that is then and now on the same track for me. It is also how my son ended up weighing in on Tom Hardy’s bars.

26. CZARFACE & Frankie Pulitzer, “Mad Technology” (feat. Method Man)
27. CZARFACE & Frankie Pulitzer, “Dragon Cannon” (feat. El-P)
28. CZARFACE, “Good Villains Go Last” (feat. R.A. the Rugged Man)
29. CZARFACE & MF DOOM, “Bomb Thrown”
30. Black Thought & Danger Mouse, “Belize” (feat. MF DOOM)
31. DANGERDOOM, “Benzi Box” (feat. CeeLo Green)
32. MF DOOM, “Rhymes Like Dimes”
33. Black Thought & Danger Mouse, “No Gold Teeth”
34. MF DOOM, ”?” (feat. Kurious)
35. Kurious, “When The Coffee Kicks In”
36. Atmosphere, “Kilowatts” (feat. Kimani & Kurious)
37. Kurious, “Par For The Course” (feat. Mr. Fantastik)
38. MF DOOM, “Rapp Snitch Knishes” (feat. Mr. Fantastik)
39. King Geedorah, “Anti-Matter” (feat. Mr. Fantastik)
40. King Geedorah, “Fazers”
41. Madvillain, “Accordion”
42. Madvillain, “America’s Most Blunted” (feat. Quasimoto)

The Beat Conductors

This is the chapter my friend was warning me about. Yes, it is jazzy. That is the point.

Quasimoto is Madlib’s pitched-up alter ego. Lootpack is Madlib’s crew from Oxnard. Jaylib is Madlib plus J Dilla. Dilla’s group was Slum Village. And a young Dilla, credited as Jay Dee, produced The Pharcyde’s “Drop” in 1995.

That last one carries us west, and I will be honest about it: the step out of “Drop” into the next chapter is geography, not a shared person. The Pharcyde are a Los Angeles group, and Los Angeles is where we are going.

43. Quasimoto, “Come On Feet”
44. Lootpack, “Whenimondamic”
45. Jaylib, “The Red (Remix)”
46. J Dilla, “Workinonit”
47. Slum Village, “Players”
48. The Pharcyde, “Drop”

West Coast Underground

Home turf. “Preservation” comes from a 2005 compilation called Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture, which might as well be the subtitle of this whole playlist. It pairs Aesop Rock with Del the Funky Homosapien, and it is named for the producer who made the beat. Del is Hieroglyphics, so that is track 50.

Aceyalone was a regular at the Good Life Cafe, the South Central open mic that shaped a generation of Los Angeles MCs, and he guests on the Dilated Peoples track at 52. Jurassic 5 literally formed at the Good Life, when two crews merged. Planet Asia came up alongside Dilated Peoples, and “Repentance” is him and Talib Kweli in 2026. The step from there into Jurassic 5 is a scene link, not a person.

Then it tightens back up. Chali 2na of Jurassic 5 guests on Blackalicious. Cut Chemist was Jurassic 5’s DJ, and his solo album features Thes One of People Under the Stairs on “2266 Cambridge” and Edan and Mr. Lif on “Storm”. Mr. Lif. Def Jux. Track 5. The chain closes.

And that closer is from the Warner Bros. album. A major label record whose guests are a Def Jux MC, a Boston original, and half of People Under the Stairs. That is what I mean by independent.

49. Wu-Tang Clan, Aesop Rock & Del the Funky Homosapien, “Preservation”
50. Hieroglyphics, “You Never Knew”
51. Aceyalone, “The Guidelines”
52. Dilated Peoples, “The Shape of Things to Come” (feat. Aceyalone)
53. Dilated Peoples, “Worst Comes to Worst”
54. Talib Kweli & Planet Asia, “Repentance”
55. Jurassic 5, “Concrete Schoolyard”
56. Blackalicious, “4000 Miles” (feat. Chali 2na & Lateef)
57. Cut Chemist, “2266 Cambridge” (feat. Thes One)
58. People Under the Stairs, “San Francisco Knights”
59. People Under the Stairs, “Acid Raindrops”
60. Cut Chemist, “Storm” (feat. Edan & Mr. Lif)

How this got built

I did not build this alone, and I would rather tell you than have you wonder. I worked the list out in a long conversation with Claude, an AI assistant. Think of it as a brainstorm with something that never gets tired of “okay, but who produced that one?”

What the AI did: kept track of the chain, suggested who connects to whom, held on to everything I cut and why, and then did the tedious part, which is finding each track and placing it in order in Apple Music. That last piece made this very easy. Reordering 60 tracks on a phone is nobody’s idea of a good night. Telling something “move this after that” is.

What I did: the picks, the taste, and every final call. A few of them, so you can see how the sausage got made:

• I pulled Cannibal Ox’s “Iron Galaxy”, El-P’s “Tasmanian Pain Coaster”, Killer Mike’s “Reagan” and Aesop Rock’s “Zero Dark Thirty” as too deep for day one. They are parked for the producers volume.
• The Pharcyde’s “Runnin’” came out for “Drop”, because my friends already know “Runnin’”.
• Run The Jewels’ “Blockbuster Night, Pt. 1” came out for “Legend Has It”, because a newcomer may already know it. One recognizable song per big act helps.
• Blackalicious’s “Alphabet Aerobics” came out for “4000 Miles” and “2266 Cambridge”.
• Lessons I learned the hard way: an abrasive opener like Company Flow is right for the story and risky for a new listener, and a long mid-tempo run needs a lift right after it.

One warning if you try this yourself. AI gets credits wrong, confidently. The brainstorm put at least one bad credit into my notes, and I only caught it later. Check everything before you publish it. I did.

Then AI was there to help me collect the thoughts and notes from the back and forth, and get me to a place where I could wrapper it in my thoughts. The point was to get the content out.

What’s next

The friend who pushed back? Before this list was even done I sent him a small handful of tracks: Aesop Rock’s “ZZZ Top” and “Dorks”, Cannibal Ox’s “Stress Rap”, and Madvillain’s “All Caps”. He liked them. And in my true fashion, I kept going.

So there is more coming. One of the next volumes is the thing I actually promised in that group text: the bangers. Another goes deeper into the West Coast. Another starts an argument about beats versus lyricists, and the last one belongs to the producers.

That bad credit I mentioned turned up while building Vol. 2, which is a story for that post. If I got something wrong here, tell me. If you think someone is missing, tell me that too. I have been the only one geeking out for a long time. So reach out: allynz@wcithipster.com.