SAMPLED#underground rap
21 stories
Stories tagged #underground rap on Sampled — sound, style, and scenes, all in one place.
Open Mike Eagle and Kenny Segal finally made an album — DOOMED! is a breakup record with jokes
Two Project Blowed lifers, twenty years of friendship and fifteen songs about a relationship coming apart. Backwoodz calls it the world's first half-whimsical breakup album.
DJ Haram's Aug 20 Brooklyn show is the real start of her next era
The Thot Daughter Tour lands at Baby's All Right on August 20 with Bbymutha, Sha Ray, Archangel, Nappy Nina and JWords — and it says more about where DJ Haram is heading than any single release has.
ELUCID and Sebb Bash stripped it back to two turntables and a microphone
I Guess U Had To Be There is a rapper-producer record in the oldest sense, with billy woods, Breeze Brewin, Estee Nack and Shabaka Hutchings passing through.
PremRock only makes a solo album when he has something to say. Did You Enjoy Your Time Here…? is that album
Four years after Load Bearing Crow's Feet, the ShrapKnel co-founder returned with a record stitched together by Willie Green and stacked with Backwoodz regulars.
How to actually listen to billy woods' lyrics
His writing is called dense, cryptic and difficult. It is none of those things once you know what he is doing. Six habits that make the catalog open up.
Sortilège: how one Aethiopes verse turned Preservation and Gabe 'Nandez into a duo
Nandez's appearance on "Sauvage" was the seed. The full-length that grew out of it is one of the most texturally strange records Backwoodz has released.
Fatboi Sharif and Child Actor had never worked together. Crayola Circles is what happened
Two longtime Backwoodz affiliates finally in one room — horror-movie writing over production that keeps refusing to behave.
Blockhead's The Aux is the Backwoodz posse album, disguised as a producer record
The veteran producer's first rap album since Garbology put him in the matchmaker seat — and doubled as a roster showcase for the label.
AKAI SOLO is part of the NYC indie rap wave and completely apart from it
The Brooklyn rapper has worked with Pink Siifu, Armand Hammer and Navy Blue — and still sounds like nobody else on the bill.
Underground rap in July 2026: the month the basements out-shipped the majors
Gangrene came back. Dark Lo and V Don announced another one. Crip Jesus swung a Wu-Tang bat on the West Coast. Here is what actually moved in the underground this month.
Defcee is a rapper, a writer and a teacher — and he runs one of Chicago's longest-standing rap workshops
Ten-plus projects since 2007, stages shared with Amiri Baraka and Chance the Rapper, and a monthly workshop broadcast that keeps the pipeline open.
SKECH185 came up in Chicago's most overlooked rap lineage — and it shows in every verse
Tomorrow Kings alum, southeast side native, graffiti writer first. He Left Nothing For The Swim Back is the record that put it all together.
Henry Canyons: the jazz saxophonist from Brooklyn ciphers who became an LA rap fixture
A self-described Brooklinite-French-Jew whose bilingual writing and melodic delivery came out of two coasts and a horn.
Best Free Plugins 2026 for Underground Producers
The 10 best free plugins for underground producers in 2026 — UAD Explore, Vital, Valhalla Supermassive, TDR Nova, OTT and more, with a quick comparison table.
Where to start with billy woods: 6 albums, in order
A first-listen order for billy woods' catalog, from the accessible entry points to the deep end, with release dates and producers taken from the label's own pages.
Duncecap went from the karma kids to Go Climb A Tree without losing the joke
The Brooklyn-by-way-of-New-Jersey rapper writes emotionally intelligent material that still sounds like it is having fun.
Who is billy woods? A guide to rap's most quietly influential writer
D.C. by birth, New York by residence, Africa and the West Indies by childhood: a plain-language introduction to billy woods, the rapper who built Backwoodz Studioz into the most consistent independent label in underground rap.
Curly Castro is the furious half of ShrapKnel — and one of Backwoodz's most political writers
Wrecking Crew veteran, Philly-based, and the rapper who turns a verse into a history lesson without slowing down.
Atlanta’s New Pulse: Ealuhri and Popstar Benny Stake Their Claim
By fusing Opium-inflected aggression with local grit, Ealuhri is positioning himself as the essential link in the city's evolving underground.
Lucki finally became mainstream by refusing to stop sounding like Lucki
Dr*gs R Bad debuts at No. 9 on the Billboard 200, a Bad Influence Tour with Sk8star is locked in, and a documentary is on the way — all without sanding down the mumble.
Nettspend, Gucci, and the moment underground rap became a casting call
An 18-year-old viral rapper from Virginia walked Demna's first Gucci show in lavender snakeskin. The album landed three weeks later. The pipeline from SoundCloud to Milan is now a single hallway.