Atmosphere - Yesterday. I'd recommend sitting down and reading the lyrics whilst listening.
!
After many years I've been listening to a bit of Atmosphere recently. Slug's incredible at times.
I'm a very part time hiphop fan.
Both Slug and Ant are criminally underrated. When Life Gives you Lemons is my favourite Atmosphere album, but Slug is very rarely off form.
Who are your favourites?
I hadn't heard any of their stuff in about 10 years or something, then gave Lucy Ford & Sad Clown a listen to in the last few days. I forgot how superb Slug's rhymes are. Agree about Ant's production, Brother Ali's Shadows on the Sun is an album he produces aside from Atmosphere I really liked.
When it comes to other hiphop albums of recent times, the only new album I have really spent a lot of time listening to over the last year or so is Aesop Rock's Impossible Kid. Which isn't out of disinterest of the genre, more out of not really being able to discover any new releases/artists. Recommend me some albums if you can!
My classics include
Ultramagnetic MC's - Critical Beatdown
Dr Octagon
Cannibal Ox - Cold Vein
EL-P Fantastic Damage
Wu Tang - 36 Chambers
Madvillain
Deep Puddle Dynamics
Big Daddy Kane - Long Live the Kane
Maybe some others as well that I have forgotten about!
That's a rather impressive list! I also really liked Impossible Kid.
As you've got Cannibal Ox there I'd recommend:
Company Flow - Funcrusher Plus
Binary Star - Masters of the Universe
And I'm gonna try and base the rest off of your list above
From the US:
Blu & Exile - Below the Heavens
Little Brother - The Listening
Nujabes - Modal Soul (Nujabes is my favourite producer ever)
Screwball - Screwball Classics
Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx
Ghostface Killah - Ironman
7L & Esoteric - Dangerous Connections
Eyedea & Abilities - First Born
Grieves - Together/ Apart
And some newer US releases
Skyzoo - Peddler Thomas
Reks - Rhytmatic Eternal King Supreme
Kendrick Lamar - Good kid MAAD city
Ka - Iron Works
Finale - A Pipe Dream and a Promise
J Cole - Friday Night Lights
That should have at least a couple you like
Failing that, here are my favourite UK hip hop albums of all time
Jehst - Return of the drifter (Greatest UK hiphop album ever)
Skinnyman - Council Estate of Mind
Braintax - Biro Funk
Rhyme Asylum - State of Lunacy OR their second album Solitary Confinement (Genuinely, any track by them will have you sold)
Klashnekoff - The Sagas
Sorry it took me a while to respond. Hopefully there's enough there to keep you busy for a while
Daniel