I am a pretty big fan of soul music and funk, and it actually came from listening to the wu tang clan and finding out the origin of the samples. Wendy Rene (After The Laughter, sampled in Wu Tang Clan's "Tearz") is now my favorite soul singer, since there was a 2LP issued of unreleased material. Prior to that she'd just had some single on Stax, and you'd have to get the STAX single box set to get it. But I digress.
My point is, as someone else alluded to, the sampling of hip hop can / could have some real flair to it. Case in point is DJ MUGGS, 1999 and before. He's best known for working with Cypress Hill and House of Pain, but I think he worked with Gravediggaz and others around this time. I still need to go to
whosampledit.com to find out what his record crates looked like, but I really enjoy the texture of these tracks. House of Pain was obviously a gimmick, I have heard their demos prior to being signed, it was absolute shit. Obvious gimmick to exploit the "Irish Rap" market. But they were lucky to get Muggs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIUzF9VhPok Their single from their second album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKhJXaX2bAUI also want to add that Method Man's Tical was recorded in a grimey basement. Their prior studio was flooded, and most of the album was destroyed. But for some reason, they still went to another basement after the flood, as I recall reading somewhere. It is alluded to in wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tical_(album)#BackgroundAnd I want to add that I never saw anyone mention Das EFX. I think they had a gritty style and just something straight-forward, yet unusual about their rhythms, I feel like they were the only ones who used different bpms than usual in more popular hip hop of the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkqdAqX28u0I chuckled as someone's use of the term "white backpacker rap", but truth be told, the links I followed that were about being raw and low fi, and cool, I just thought it was meandering bullshit. I am still keeping an open mind, because I do like when I get a renegade feel from hip hop, but it's pretty rare.
